INSIDE AMERICAN EDUCATION

Rating:
Summary: A detailed summary of problems in American Education
Review: Wow, what a book. This is an amazing attack on the public education system. Almost everything is explored, how teachers teach, what teachers teach, the kind of people attracted to education, all the politics of education, how much money is spent on education, and on, and on, and on.

The first hundred pages focus on the first thirteen years of schooling, from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The rest of the book explores just how many problems there are in colleges and universities.

The first chapter, "Decline, Deception, and Dogmas," opens the book with Thomas Sowell reviewing just how bad the public education system has gotten. Students are not being taught the basics, and are being brain washed. Much of the particular details Sowell explores fall into one or both of these categories. There has been a marked decline in learning, with a parallel dramatic increase in A's and B's. Thomas Sowell says part of the reason for the grade inflation is so parents feel good about their children and don't realize the children are not learning anything. Students are being taught to feel good about themselves, even when they are learning very little. American students are failing in both rote learning and in problem solving. One of my favorite lines went something like: "Johnny can't read. Johnny can't think. And Johnny doesn't even know what thinking is." Students often confuse thinking with feelings.

Thomas Sowell covers how the public education system has five basic responses to criticism: secrecy, camouflage, denial, shift the blame, and then ask for more money. States which spend more money per capita don't do better

The third chapter, "Classroom Brainwashing," is about how so many groups are trying to use the public school system to influence and even control how children think, so little time is left to be spent on teaching the children the basics and how to think. Most of these groups have different agendas, but all of them work at separating the individual from his family. Thomas Sowell talks about a number of the different type of brainwashing techniques used in the classroom.

After four chapters on K-12, the book moves on to problems in colleges and universities. There are a scary number of problems.

After reading this the first time I went out and bought three more copies to loan to friends. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in the current state of public education in America. It is well written and well documented. In many ways it is sad, this was written back in 1992, and if anything things have gotten worse.



Rating:
Summary: A must-read for every concerned parent.
Review: A book every concerned parent should read!!! You should read it to understand what is going on in public schools. Much more, you should read it to understand what's going on in the college education. Your view on the current educational landscape will be radically and forever changed. This book will be a launchpad for you to do further research.

Every American should be thankful that this book is written. If I have enough money I would give every parent a copy of this book. This is simply a must-read. Other books that are in the must-read category are "Dumbing Down Our Kids" by Charles Sykes, "Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong" by William Kilkpatrick, and "Profscam" by Charles Sykes. Books by Samuel L. Blumenfeld are also highy recommended for understanding the current K-12 education ills.

Now a little bit of my personal journey: I first read this book five years ago when my children were in elementary and junior high schools. This book broke all my romanic thoughts about public schools. I verified with my children concerning the things mentioned in the book. My children confirmed that many things said in the book indeed took place in their schools. I was very alarmed at this. Because of this I tranfer all my children to a priavte school. I cannot allow my childern to be damaged psychologically or taught wrongly. My children are my treasure.

Read this book! Protect your chilren. It may be the most important book you read in your life, except the Bible. No book surpass the Bible, for it is the precious word of God!

Rating:
Summary: Well written, but read cautiously
Review: Be careful when you read this book. Sowell writes well, but in my opinion his points and conclusions are not always completely grounded or safely backed up.

The first blurb on the back cover states: "[Educators] have taken our money, betrayed our trust, failed our children, and then lied about the failures with inflated grades and pretty words." This a huge blanket statement, and unfortunately the meat of the book retains the quote's outlook and generality.

Sowell spotlights bizarre occurences and bad experiences in schools and then blankets entire systems with these black spots on education's record. According to Sowell, teachers are of low intelligence and are only looking for the easy way out while damaging children as much as they possibly can along the way.

While attacking school structure and curriculum, Sowell takes situations and textual examples out of context, does not actually include any input from teachers or administrators, does not include any examples of actual curricula to back up any of his criticisms, and often quotes disgruntled parents without providing the reader with any background on their situations. He also uses a very narrow sample of schools within which to demonize the entire system.

There are definitely problems in some American schools. The problems described in this book don't exist in the schools around my area--we have wonderful caring teachers and great schools for the primary and secondary level. If you are a parent looking for advice in your child's education, look for yourself in your community. Schools will show you their curriculums if you ask. Good teachers and administrators will allow you to observe their classrooms for you to make your own decisions.

Rating:
Summary: A Serious Eye-Opener on the American Educational System.
Review: I just finished reading this book, and boy is it a whopper! For anyone who wants an unadulterated look at and thoughtful analysis of the problems facing education in America - from public high schools to college and universities across this country - it would behoove you to read this book very carefully. It will shock and enlighten you, as well as really make you think.

Rating:
Summary: A Serious Eye-Opener on the American Educational System.
Review: I just finished reading this book, and boy is it a whopper! For anyone who wants an unadulterated look at and thoughtful analysis of the problems facing education in America - from public high schools to college and universities across this country - it would behoove you to read this book very carefully. It will shock and enlighten you, as well as really make you think.

Rating:
Summary: A must for anyone with kids and a clear concience
Review: I read this book for the first time in 1993. Being a college professor for many years now, I knew there was something wrong with the American Educational System. Sowell stated it plainly. I am now a father of two and am facing the decision of how to educate my children (home, private school, public school, or charter school -- if it ever happens --). As Sowell states the American educational system is bankrupt. The definition of quality education is nebulous at best. Powerful teacher unions and other interest groups mess with our children's minds and produce intellectually lazy graduates: people who know quite a bit about self-granted rights and everyone else's obligations but little about personal obligations, responsibility, and logical and productive thinking. Anyone with school-age children should read this book before deciding which school is best for his/her children.

Rating:
Summary: great look at american education
Review: Inside american education by thomas sowell, he brings out the problems of american educational system like its ephasism on things like multicultarilsm, death education and sex education and these and other factors have ruined american education resulting in american students falling behing kids of other nations. He also looks at colleges and how they are moving away from traditional places of learning to research and professors devot more to research then teaching. Larger class size and foreign graduate students with poor english skills further hurt the learning process.

Great book on the problems of american education.

Rating:
Summary: Several very good chapters
Review: The quality is uneven; a few chapters are very good while others disappoint. Sowell is at his best when he looks at universities and their incentives from the point of view of an economist.

In "Damaging Admissions" he takes apart the "Tuition only covers 2/3 of the cost of educating you" nonsense. (What the 2/3 number really means is, "From sources other than tuition, we are able to raise 50% more.") The picture emerges of (some) universities as the venal oligopolists they truly are.

In "New Racism and Old Dogmatism" he explains how the policy of racial preferences has radicalized the beneficiaries of that policy; unable to compete on conventional academic criteria, students -- as well as their professors -- rationalize their academic shortcomings by dismissing academic standards altogether and blaming racism in often absurd ways. At the same time, a vicious campaign of intimidation and ostracism targets those blacks who do not toe the ideological line. I have not seen a more forceful condemnation of "Affirmative Action" anywhere.

"New Racism and Old Dogmatism" and "Ideological Double Standards" are rich sources of anecdotes about the hypocrisy and intolerance of the campus left-wing establishment. This is very good stuff, if not as wide-ranging as Dinesh D'Souza's _Illiberal Education_.

Some chapters are not so good. "Impaired Faculties" is about the intellectual poverty of Education Schools, their professors and their products (schoolteachers), but it's mostly too vague. The same can be said of "The Empire Strikes Back", the chapter on schoolteachers'unions. The chapters about political indoctrination of schoolchildren are specific enough, relating some truly outrageous anecdotes, but I was left unsure if these are the exception or the rule.

Rating:
Summary: For anyone with school age children
Review: Thomas Sowell deftly points out the real problem - not that you may disagree with the morals and values being taught in American public schools, but that these have any business being taught at all when the time could more usefully be spent on education. He dispells other myths such as learning should be "fun" and "relevant" and the notion that elementary school age children have the ability to realistically analyze complex and controversial political issues ("Dear Mr. President, please don't make anymore nuclear bombs...").

This book has provided the impetus for me to purposely frustrate, bore and challenge my children because as Mr. Sowell points out what we knew all along, real self esteem comes from accomplishing something which was not easy.

Even if you plan on sending your children to private school, I recommend this book. The teachers are all coming from the same colleges and universities.

Rating:
Summary: Do your kids a favor - read this book!
Review: Thomas Sowell discusses American Education from pre-K's to graduate schools; the students, faculties, and administrations; and the financing, politics, and self-serving policies thereof. In 51 pages of notes, he supplies 1050 individual citations supporting his views and conclusions. His 11-page Index reveals some major themes by the number of pages on which each is discussed -- Brainwashing and Psychological Conditioning (50 pp.), Harvard (52 pp.), and Political Correctness (55 pp.).

Dr. Sowell grew up in Harlem during the 1930's and 1940's. He graduated from Harvard College (A.B. magna cum laude 1958), Columbia University (A.M. 1959), and University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1968) - all degrees being in Economics. With the quality of his education and particularly with his race, given the politics of the past half century, one might expect him to end up as a prominent bauble on some elitist university's faculty tree. Such was not the case. He displayed much too much independence of mind to be safely tucked into anybody's pocket. We learn on page 141 that as early as 1970, "a black professor named Thomas Sowell" warned against programs become too great to disguise, or to hide under euphemisms and apologetics, the conclusion that will be drawn in many quarters will not be that these were half-baked schemes, but that black people just don't have it." Dr. Sowell moved through organizations (U.S. Dept. of Labor, AT&T, The Urban Institute) and universities (Howard, Cornell, Brandeis, UCLA, Amherst). Since 1980, he has been a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California.

The reason for looking at Dr. Sowell and his background so carefully is that he makes many bold statements in his book, Inside American Education. "The brutal reality is that the American system of education is bankrupt." " . . . the intellectual calibre of public school teachers in the United States is shockingly low." "Parents who send their children to school with instructions to respect and obey their teachers may be surprised to discover how often these children are sent back home conditioned to disrespect and disobey their parents." Should we listen to a person who says such things? I believe so. Dr. Sowell has been educated in our best schools back before it was de rigueur to have quotas. He has shown an independence of mind to withstand the blandishments of comfortable conformity. He has operated at the top intellectual realms of our country. He has the credentials to make the statements that he does. To decide for yourself, you will have to read the book for his detailed arguments in their favor, because they are far too extensive to cover in a review.

This book may make you paranoid about your children in our schools. You may wish to become more involved with what your children are being taught and who is doing the teaching. You may wish to become a "bigger presence" in the lives of your children by moving them up in your priorities. Time for panic? No. Any system that can produce a Thomas Sowell and allow him the freedom to speak out must have some very great strengths. But . . . read the book.