| Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality
Other products by Crown Forum Ratting 4.0 Out of 5.0 Special Offer Total New 38 Use |
|||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||
| Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [amazon.com or endless.com, as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product. | |||||||||||||
Buy Low Price From Here Now
With four simple truths as his framework, Charles Murray, the bestselling coauthor of The Bell Curve, sweeps away the hypocrisy, wishful thinking, and upside-down priorities that grip America’s educational establishment.
Ability varies. Children differ in their ability to learn academic material. Doing our best for every child requires, above all else, that we embrace that simplest of truths. America’s educational system does its best to ignore it.
Half of the children are below average. Many children cannot learn more than rudimentary reading and math. Real Education reviews what we know about the limits of what schools can do and the results of four decades of policies that require schools to divert huge resources to unattainable goals.
Too many people are going to college. Almost everyone should get training beyond high school, but the number of students who want, need, or can profit from four years of residential education at the college level is a fraction of the number of young people who are struggling to get a degree. We have set up a standard known as the BA, stripped it of its traditional content, and made it an artificial job qualification. Then we stigmatize everyone who doesn’t get one. For most of America’s young people, today’s college system is a punishing anachronism.
America’s future depends on how we educate the academically gifted. An elite already runs the country, whether we like it or not. Since everything we watch, hear, and read is produced by that elite, and since every business and government department is run by that elite, it is time to start thinking about the kind of education needed by the young people who will run the country. The task is not to give them more advanced technical training, but to give them an education that will make them into wiser adults; not to pamper them, but to hold their feet to the fire.
The good news is that change is not only possible but already happening. Real Education describes the technological and economic trends that are creating options for parents who want the right education for their children, teachers who want to be free to teach again, and young people who want to find something they love doing and learn how to do it well. These are the people for whom Real Education was written. It is they, not the politicians or the educational establishment, who will bring American schools back to reality.
Twenty-four years ago, Charles Murray’s Losing Ground changed the way the nation thought about welfare. Real Education is about to do the same thing for America’s schools.
Technical Details
- ISBN13: 9780307405388- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
See more technical details
By Love to Learn
Very thought provoking! His claims seem to be well founded, and would revolutionize education in America.
By C. Oliver (Worcester, MASSACHUSETTS United States)
This is one of those books that can change your life, I think, or at least, change the way you look at education, the system, and the way we put merit on things. I disagree with him on exams, I failed math in the SAT's and barely passed the MCAS, but I'm excellent in the stock market, and I've been a businessman since I was four years old and buying and selling candy for a dime on the penny.
This book to me is not elitist. I don't feel it is at least. I don't see him saying that those who wouldn't go to college or weren't cut out for college are to be the worker bees for those who are. That's elitism. My heroes were Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and in some part, Jay Gould, I don't believe any of these men finished grade school, let alone went to college. I used to watch Ducktails when I was little, which, mind you, Scrooge McDuck has no college education either. I think college is horribly overrated, a need for a college degree had initially made me consider wasting my time so I could get the job I wanted. I am getting an associates degree because my mother won't accept college isn't important. I have made a little more or a little less depending on the market than 200,000 dollars in the last four years, by only adding 2,000 dollars a year since I was 18. I also have invested in private companies and have seen returns on those. I could live very well and make a good living right this instant. I'll be a millionaire before I'm 26. I'll have an associates degree and still won't qualify for the job I wanted. But that's fine you know, because it might have taken away from me doing what I'm doing so effectively.
This is America people, what we need to be teaching the kids of this generation is how to take their ideas, take their wants and desires, and make them into realities, that's what we have to do.
This book, I believe should be given to every school board member, every Governor, every Senator, every congressman, and every president, and maybe, just maybe, America can stop its slide down to becoming a second class power.
By A. Vaughn (Athens,GA)
This book is a no-nonsense approach to the nations educational problems. His basic principles are either self-evident or common-sense, when considered thoughtfully. His findings are typically well-backed up by statistics and it is clear that he is thoughtfully considered not only about what education should look like in America, but also what is possible considering the cultural and political realities. I would highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about the nation's educational system, which ought to include any educator, college student, or parent.
By HISTORYBUFF (Tucson, Arizona)
I originally posted this as a comment on another review, but decided it it more appropriate standing alone.
Schools are not a place to automatically get an education. They have become institutionized baby sitters. Evidence? As the need for hands on the farm decreased the school year grew longer. Thomas Carlyle wrote, and I quote from memory: "The only real education is a good library." (Of course the books must be the right ones, and be read and understood.) This is still true. It follows that the most important funciton of primary schools is to teach reading. As for leading a "horse" to "drink of books," that is problematical. When I attended school many years ago, an interest in reading was encouraged by the teacher reading to the class. If what was read, was well selected, it worked pretty well. I cannot recall that in those days there was much evidence that "Johnny Couldn't Read."
Consider a great money-saving device: grant anyone who applies for testing a general educational development test and if they pass in the upper quartile - or perhaps even the upper half - of test scores where they are matched against test scores of college graduates, confer a degree in general education granted by the U.S Dept. of Education. I, a high school dropout, took the U.S. Armed Forces Institute's General Educational Development tests on which scores were matched only against those who were moving on to junior college level, I, an avid reader, scored percentiles of 91, 93, 98 and 99. Those who passed were granted a two year college equivalency on their military records.
I conjecture that the reason the test wasn't based on the scores of graduates was because so-called "educators" feared the result might put many of them out of their jobs in a sheltered employment field. (We've all heard of courses in mud pies and underwater basked weaving, many of which are required subjects.)
An article in a publication of the Air Univesity many years back was titled: "Education and Jobs: the Great Training Robbery." Its point was that in practice, when an industry moved its base and new trainees were needed at the new location, the average additional training needed to meet the industry's standards required was found to be only six to eight weeks to adequately train replacements for the employees who chose not to move with their employer.
There was and still is an absolute fixation with the idea that college trainees make better candidates for 'any' job. When reality moved in it was discovered that, (contrary to the accepted wisdom) when college grads were hired, they were over qualified, and left to get better jobs as soon as the opportunity presented itself, and all the industry got for their money was temporary hires, and in the bargain lost their training money.
Today, if the government, which seems wedded to the same erroneous notion, accepted the money-saving potential that could be gained from adopting the idea behind general education degrees and granted them based on competitive examinations, a substantial part of the money spend on subsidizing higher education at this time, could be saved and the need for the high tax base for so-called education would be greatly reduced. A bonus would be the saving of millions of hours squandered on four years of classroom fiddling.
I rest my case except to say that in the two years before I dropped out of high school I skipped school to go the the library and read (predominately history and biography). In case anyone thinks I dropped out due to low grades; I won a high school wide contest on excellence in history given by the Daughters of the American Revolution with a score so high out of 150 questions that second and third didn't come close. A sad fact was that I had to be given a waiver sought by my history teacher to take the test since only B students and above were eligible. (A misconception still common was that good grades invariably indicate superior knowledge.) My good old teacher realized that she'd used low grades as my punishment for sleeping in class and never turning in a page of homework. She had punished me with C's for A-plus work and disqualified her fastest horse. It is still a common practice to give A's for conformity, not knowledge, with the result that fanny-tupping mediocrities can also get A grades.
As for discussion of "averages," an average is an average in any set of numbers, whether in tens, hundreds, thousands or millions - we didn't invent the bell curve, we discovered it as a fact of nature. Further, the apparent notion of being able to teach brains is still implicit in college catalogs. I question that inherent traits such as intelligence can be altered by environments.
Glenn G. Boyer
Read my book "Where The Heart Was" to get a full appreciation of those "good old" days. It's purpose as I state on the first page is "to re-invoke the soul of the republic." read its reviews on Amazon. i am also recognized world-wide as the foremost authority in an area of history. See my "I Married Wyatt Earp" as an example, on Amazon. It has been in print for 33 years, was published by a university press, and consistently was rated in the top one percent of best sellers on amazon until it was temporarily taken out of print pending a revised edition.
I probably would have been selected as least likely to succeed by my peers, but have managed to get a dozen or so books published by major publishers and reprinted in both the U.S. and England.
By Gian Fiero (Hollywood, California)
I'm a college professor and I commend Mr. Murray on his insightful analysis, and I applaud his lucid assessment of the problems that plague our schools on all levels. What I was particularly impressed with was the candor and courage he used in presenting his case for academically challenged students to attend trade schools instead of conventional colleges. It's not a popular notion, but it makes sense financially and intellectually. As he states, the value of a BA is overrated. It's the responsibility of educators to shed light on ALL prudent and viable educational options available to students in their career pursuits. Perhaps after reading this book they will be more inclined.
Images Product
Read more Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality