Market Education: The Unknown History (IDG's 3-D Visual) [Paperback]

Andrew J. Coulson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0765804964 | ISBN-13: 978-0765804969 | Publication Date: January 1999

Discontent with public education has been on the rise in recent years, as parents complain that their children are not being taught the basics, that they are not pushed to excel, and that their classrooms are too chaotic to encourage any real learning. The public has begun to reject school bond levies with regularity, frustrated by mounting education costs that are coupled with stagnation or decline in student achievement. ---

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. His historical study ranges from classical Athens and ancient Rome, through the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, to nineteenth-century England and contemporary America. ---

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. He sets out a blueprint for competitive, free-market education reform that would make schools more flexible, more innovative, and more responsive to the needs of parents and students. He describes how education for low-income children might be funded under a market system, and how the transition from monopolistic public education to market education might be achieved. ---

Coulson's Market Education touches on a wide range of issues, including minority education, corruption in high-stakes standardized testing, the role of public school teachers, and mismanagement in educational bureaucracies. It examines alternative reform proposals from vouchers and charter schools to national standards for school curricula. This timely and engaging book will appeal to parents, educators, and others concerned with the quality and cost of schooling.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"American schools cost more than do those in most other countries. Yet, the longer our students are in school, the further they fall behind students in other modern countries. Andrew Coulson draws upon both history and current research to identify clear reasons for such poor results. His book convincingly tells policy makers and parents how to solve the deep-seated problems of our schools." -- Herbert J. Walberg, Research Professor of Education and Psychology, the University of Illinois at Chicago. From the jacket

"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." -- William Raspberry, The Washington Post, August 17, 1998

In this unusually well written and thoroughly researched book, Andrew J. Coulson ranges from ancient Greece and Rome to modern America and Japan to document his conclusion that parental choice in a private educational market is a far more effective system for educating children than government-run schools. Encyclopedic in its coverage of the arguments for and against alternative modes of organizing schooling, readers will find this excellent book instructive whether they agree or disagree with his conclusion.

- Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics ---

Coulson's [Market Education] 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 its magic yet again. He wonders if the magic was ever there. . . .

- William Raspberry, The Washington Post ---

School choice has a much longer history than most imagine. All those committed to school reform should read this fascinating historical account.

- Paul Peterson, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government, and Director of the Program on Education, Policy, and Governance, Harvard University ---

American schools cost more than do those in most other countries. Yet, the longer our students are in school, the further they fall behind students in other modern countries. Andrew Coulson draws upon both history and current research to identify clear reasons for such poor results. His book convincingly tells policymakers and parents how to solve the deep-seated problems of our schools.

- Herbert J. Walberg, Research Professor of Education and Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago -- Publisher Comments

About the Author

Andrew J. Coulson, a Seattle-based writer and editor, is a Senior Research Associate of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. He has written a variety of articles on school governance and the history of education, and is currently the editor of School Choices, an Internet website intended to foster informed public debate on education reform. Prior to dedicating himself to the study of education policy, he was a computer software engineer with Microsoft Corporation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 430 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765804964
• ISBN-13: 978-0765804969
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #746,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent history, analysis, and presentation, August 12, 1999

By 

Kathleen K. Melonakos (Escondido, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Market Education: The Unknown History (IDG's 3-D Visual) (Paperback)

I have been doing research on what can be done about the sad state of public education. I read this 391 page book gripped by fascination. Any lover of history, ideas, civilization, or America should read this book. Why are our schools in serious decline? For some of the same reasons the Soviet Union collapsed. Andrew Coulson examines our current system of public education, and argues for revitalization through direct parental control. He looks at times in history when education has been free from state control, and shows that those have been some of the times of greatest cultural flourishing, such as Periclean Athens. He also looks at education in other countries, historically and currently. Public vs. private education in England, and Japan and the Netherlands are particularly of interest. He examines the history of American education, and dispells myths like the idea that people were illiterate until publicly funded education came along. The truth is that the literacy rate was much higher BEFORE Horace Mann first started promoting the idea of state schooling based on the Prussian military model of that time. Coulson also looks at constitutional questions, and deals with the legitimacy of government compelling belief. Anyone who supports the ailing status quo of public education is going to have to come to terms with the formidable research and persuasive arguments presented by Senior Research Associate and former softwear engineer, Andrew Coulson, who devoted four years to producing this book. They will also have to answer the other growing advocates of education liberation, among whom are Thomas Sowell (Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas) Stephen Arons (Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling) and Sheldon Richman (The Separation of School and State). I salute Andrew Coulson as having done a magnificent job in writing this well documented and thoughtful study.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History and Statistics In Support of School Choice, March 7, 2001

By 

Cherise Kelley, bellaonline.com School Reform... (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Market Education: The Unknown History (IDG's 3-D Visual) (Paperback)

Many people have proposals for what should be done about education today. Few have looked into history to see what has been successful in the past. This book does that. Few have hard data to back up their theories. This book does. It cites more than one thousand authentic historical and statistical sources. Half of these are original documents (or translations thereof).

The bibliography alone is worth the price of this book. I had been searching for statistics on literacy, and I found so much more here! This book is not only an excellent survey of educational methods throughout history, but also a comprehensive list of sources for future research.

The author is biased toward completely privatized education, and in this book he explains why. He starts where democracy started, in Ancient Greece. Most of us have heard of Athens and Sparta. We know Spartans were dedicated warriors. We know they had to come home from war "with their shield or on it." We know the city state of Sparta was everything, and each individual citizen was dispensable.

We know that Athens, not Sparta, became the capitol in Greece's Golden Age. What I did not know before reading about it in this book was that Athens had no official school system, no regulation of teachers, and no required curriculum. Athenian teachers simply charged parents directly for educating their children. Each teacher specialized in a subject, and the parents simply chose teachers with good reputations who taught the subjects they wanted their children to know. Competition for students kept prices down. Some excellent teachers were wealthy and did not charge, notably Plato and Aristotle. The result of this free market education method was a city that became its country's leader in art, philosophy, and science.

This is but the first exploration in this timely book that examines what has worked in education. My BellaOnline School Reform Forum will be full of references to this book. So far it is the only one of its kind!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work that deserves thoughtful consideration., May 7, 1999

By 

John Warner (Greenville, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Market Education: The Unknown History (IDG's 3-D Visual) (Paperback)

We know that our public schools are not providing the quality of education that they should. Market Education does an excellent job of analyzing what the problems with public education are and making thoughtful recommendations for how to improve it. The book should be required reading for anyone interested in improving our children's education.