Saxon’s first national advertisement promoting his Algebra 1 textbook ran in Mathematics Teacher magazine in December 1981. It extolled the success of his Oklahoma pilot project and offered a full report on its results.

This was the “shot heard ‘round the world” for math education establishment leaders. Without seeing a copy of the book, a University of Chicago math education professor wrote a scathing review and urged readers not to buy the book. Saxon responded with an equally scathing rebuttal in a letter to the editor in the following issue.

His response stunned them. No one had ever returned fire against the elite establishment so publicly. But they had attacked a warrior from a world outside the education bubble. For one thing, no one had ever brought the same experience of using “math in the real world” as John Saxon. He also had experience teaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy and had been a flight instructor for young military trainees. He thus was not a novice at teaching.

The war was on. At one point, Saxon shared he was finally in “a good war” because he was getting to fight for children. The war lasted 15 years, until he died in 1996. One gleeful opponent suggested a party be thrown to celebrate his death. Hate for him still lives today among many who train teachers, sell textbooks, or lead/follow the reformists’ dismissal of classical math instruction.