Customer Reviews

School's Out: Hyperlearning, the New Technology, and the End of Education

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I first read this book at least 4 years ago, and it was extremely stimulating and thought-provoking. Looking back, it was perhaps a bit ahead of its time, because it was published before the web became ubiquitous. I find myself even now going back to refer to it, because it deals with education in a unique way, and the ideas are still very relevant today. I wish Mr. Perelman would write an updated edition, because some of the software he refers to, for example, is now quite outdated. It would be wonderful to have a current treatment of his topics, to see how the explosion of the web and other social trends might have changed his perspective and also sparked new thinking. I recommend it highly to anyone in the education or training business.

Never has a book, written more than a decade ago served as a better inspiration to lead education into the 21st Century. Lewis J. Perelman found the answer to the most pressing need of education in the manuals of successful businesses in America. "You must live with-in your budget or surly you will go out of business" The dollars invested in education are not producing the desired end results. (i.e., 48% of the adult population in Riverside County, CA is considered illiterate) And it's time that the leaders in education accept changes must be done. Mr. Perelman points out in his book, "SCHOOL'S OUT: Hyperlearning, the New Technology, and the End of Education"; a fact that all educators would agree "there is too much money being spent on administrators and bricks". Distance learning via the inter-net is a way for instructors to reach more students (scale of economics) while customizing the instruction to the needs of each individual student. (Learning at their own pace). Spending less money on layers of management and outdated structures isn't the end all answer, but we now have the technology to provide greater efficiency and less waste. How can we afford not to implement successful business techniques in the school charged, in part, with the responsibility to help develop successful business people?

I think this book fails because Perelman doesn't understand what education is. He seems to think it's a kind of engineering problem, and that machines can now do it "better, faster, and cheaper" (as he likes to say) than human teachers. He also seems to accept every myth about the power of technology there is, and forgets how many other "revolutionary" educational technologies (ed. TV, radio, movies, etc.) have failed to live up to their promises.