concepts were also tested. Educators critical of his method felt that the lessons were too drill-oriented and time-consuming, did not allow students to use calculators, and differed from other methods by not encouraging teamwork or developing creative problem-solving skills. Publishing company Saxon started his textbook publishing company when he was unable to find a publisher for his high school algebra manuscript. He mortgaged his house to raise the funds for it. He initially named his textbook publishing company Grassdale Publishers, after the name of his grandmother's farm in Georgia. Later, he changed the name of his company to Saxon Publishers. His first textbook was published in 1981 and had a very distinctive cover with a blue background and orange letters spelling out the word algebra. Saxon came into national prominence by conservative thinker and publisher William F. Buckley. Buckley announced Saxon's success on the front page of the National Review magazine in 1981 with the headline "Supply-side Algebra." After his first book was published, Saxon published more books: Algebra 1 1/2, Algebra 1/2 and Geometry, Trigonometry and Algebra 3. (He later renamed his book Algebra 1 1/2 simply Algebra 2). His reasoning for titling his second textbook Algebra 1 1/2 is that a good part of the book was a review of Algebra 1 topics. Later, he co-authored his Calculus with Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry textbook with Frank Wang, then a graduate student in mathematics at MIT. As Saxon published books that he authored or co-authored, he found other authors to write books all the way down to kindergarten level. Stephen Hake of El Monte, California authored books for 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades titled Math 54, Math 65, Math 76 and Math 87. Nancy Larson of West Haven, Connecticut authored programs titled Math K, Math 1, Math 2 and Math 3. Other books produced by the publishing company included Saxon Phonics and Spelling for kindergarten through third grade, as well as a book on physics. Upon graduation from MIT with a PhD in pure mathematics, Frank Wang was asked by Saxon to run the day-to-day operations of the company. Wang started as a 16-year-old helper to him. A picture showing Saxon and Wang at John Saxon's dining room table in the early years of the company appeared in a half-page story in the Washington Post on Tuesday, 19 June 2001 (p. A9) authored by Jay Mathews titled "Not