Market Education: The Unknown History

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Overview

In Market Education: The Unknown History, Andrew J. Coulson explores the educational problems facing parents and shows how these problems can best be addressed. He begins with a discussion of what people want from their school systems, tracing their views of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and values education should impart, and their concerns about discipline, drugs, and violence in schools. Using this survey of goals and attitudes as a guide, Coulson sets out to compare the school systems of civilizations both ...
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Overview

In Market Education: The Unknown History, Andrew J. Coulson explores the educational problems facing parents and shows how these problems can best be addressed. He begins with a discussion of what people want from their school systems, tracing their views of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and values education should impart, and their concerns about discipline, drugs, and violence in schools. Using this survey of goals and attitudes as a guide, Coulson sets out to compare the school systems of civilizations both ancient and modern, seeking to determine which systems achieved the aims of parents and the public at large and which did not. Drawing on the historical evidence of how these various systems operated, Coulson concludes that free educational markets have consistently done a better job of serving the public's needs than state-run school systems have.
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Editorial Reviews

William Raspberry
Coulson's is a sweeping blow to those of us who keep hoping the system that served earlier generations reasonably well can be helped to overcome the effects of bad policies, inadequate teachers, disengaged parents and indifferent students to perform their magic yet again. He wonders if the magic was ever there. -- Washington Post
Booknews
A Seattle-based researcher with the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Coulson traverses what we want, what's been tried, and what works in school systems ancient and contemporary, to support his argument that free educational markets serve the public's needs better than state-run monopolistic schooling. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)
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Product Details

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
Pt. I What We Want
1 Getting Used to Disappointment 7
Pt. II What's Been Tried
2 Right from the Beginning: Classical Athens and Beyond 37
3 Revolutions: The More Things Change 73
4 Coup d'Ecole: The War for Control of American Education 107
5 Teachers and Teaching in the Government Schools 139
6 The Performance Crisis in Public Schooling 177
7 Common School Problems: The World Tour 219
8 The Class Really Is Keener on the Other Side: The Case of Independent Schools 259
Pt. III What Works
9 What Makes Schools Work? 293
10 Can Government Schooling Be Fixed? 323
Conclusion: Achieving Educational Excellence 367
Notes 393
Index 453
About the Author 471
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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 20, 2003

    Everyone should read this book.

    This book truly changed how I view the institution of public education. While I used to consider myself part of the camp of people who believe that the source of the problem with public education is a lack of proper funding, 'Market Education' enabled me to remove my blinders so that I could see that the source of the problem is public education itself. Coulson does a great job of explaining how it is untrue that public education aids in the development of an educated and peaceful society, and in fact shows how state-run education creates a less educated and more hostile populous. He derails nearly every supportive argument for the maintenance of the educational system as we know it, and provides a fairly good proposal for a better educational future. This book should be required reading for all college education majors. It's always healthy for people to question their myths, and this book does just that concerning the myth that says we need the government to education us.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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