The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling [Paperback]

John Taylor Gatto (Author), John Taylor Gatto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000

"Crisis in Education from problem to opportunity."

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: Odysseus Group; 2nd ed edition (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0945700040
• ISBN-13: 978-0945700043
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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107 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth, June 17, 2008

By 

Prof. CJ "The Eclectic Professor" (North FL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling (Paperback)

John Taylor Gatto is a former New York public schoolteacher who taught for thirty years and won multiple awards for his teaching. However, constant harassment by unhelpful administrations plus his own frustrations with what he came to realize were the inherent systemic deficiencies of our `public' schools led him to resign; he now is a school-choice activist who writes and speaks against our compulsory, government-run school system.

THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is a freewheeling investigation into the real - as opposed to the `official' - history of schooling, focused on the U.S. but with examinations of other historical examples for the purposes of comparing and contrasting, as well as for tracing where ideas and concepts related to education originated. You will discover things you were never told in the official version, things that will, at times, surprise, disgust, and scare you. You will also be introduced to the little-known historiography of the the darker side of the construction of compulsory government schooling.

In the final analysis, Gatto believes that compulsory, government-run schooling is inherently destructive to true education, the cultivation of self-reliance, and indeed to individualism - which used to be a defining element of the American character. The true purpose of our public school system in reality has more to do with control than it does with learning. This does not mean that rank-and-file teachers, principals, and even superintendents believe they are making students dumber, more conformist, less self-reliant, less capable of genuine analytical, independent thought, and more easily controlled; most people involved in the system no doubt believe that they are trying their best to really teach their students. However, the system itself (which Gatto often characterizes as a complex web) ensures that its real purpose is served, despite the efforts of individual reformers within it - that true democracy is rendered unworkable even as the trappings of democracy are allegedly bolstered. Seen in this light, these institutions that produce barely literate, dependent, conformist, incomplete individuals full of emotional and psychological problems, who lack real knowledge (and whose capacity for acquiring such is deliberately weakened or eliminated), and who are just `educated' enough to pay their taxes and buy the latest products, are not, in fact, failing schools - on the contrary, if we are to believe Gatto's analysis, they are performing their designated function PERFECTLY. That purpose is to mold people in such a way as to make them more easily controlled by corporations and the state (a clear-cut example of how, contrary to popular myth, the interests of big business and those of big government more often than not coincide.)

Though the organization of the book is somewhat haphazard, this book is compulsively readable to any critical thinker with an open mind to consider what's REALLY wrong with our school system (and, no, it's nothing so simple as a shortage of funds or a lack of `accountability' -- the real problems are deeper, philosophical, and systemic.) The book is absolutely riveting, and the country would be better off if more citizens read it and demanded real change to the system.

Gatto's book deserves five stars because it dares to speak the truth.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Underground History of American Education, March 1, 2009

By 

T. S. Duff (Memphis, Tn) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling (Paperback)

This book is on my all-time top 10 list. While it is well worth the price, it is also available in its entirety online, at www.johntaylorgatto.com for free. I read it there first, and then purchased it to read again, annotate, and loan to friends. Gatto's books are all excellent, but this one is his opus. I also highly recommend Education: Free and Compulsory by Murray Rothbard. This is also available online, free, at www.mises.org. It was written decades ago, in the 60's I believe, and is amazing in its support of homeschooling, an option essentially unknown at that time. It is much shorter, at about 150 pages, than Underground History and so makes a good starting point. Mises is a generally excellent source for all manner of libertarian writings. They operate an online bookstore, but every item they control the copyright to is also available free online. As a result of these books (and many others also), we have liberated 3 of our children from the tyranny, thought control, and general low standards of our local magnet school. Our 4th is a senior this year. I'm sorry it is too late for him, but we certainly won't be sending him to a public university. My entire experience with now 13 years of public schools can be summed up in four words - I had no idea. I would also suggest that if you have children in public school now, esp high school, have them bring home all their text books and look over them closely. You may be surprised to see the PC content of the texts, not just the obvious history, government, and economics books but also English (we have an English grammar book, but we don't use it at all - indeed the pages are in pristine condition is spite of being issued to 3 previous students. Also, we don't actually write term papers, even in two years of AP English, although we do make videos. I'm sure our college profs will accept those as well. And we are well up to speed in Oprah Lit.), math (we don't do proofs in Geometry, they aren't tested on the SAT you know) and of course science, the most PC of all (few actual labs, but we do draw posters in the lab as group projects- cooperation is very important, and fully one third of our course syllabus in biology is devoted to evolution, ecology, and global warming - because the debate is over, don't you know). Let me emphasize that this is the only magnet academic high school in the city, not just an average public school. My son is a National Merit Finalist this year, one of 22 in his class. This school consistently has more Finalists than any other school in TN - they are very good at test prep, leaving the impression that they are teaching something worth knowing. I didn't know before, but now I do, and you will too if you read Gatto's book.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Falls Short of All it Could Have Been!, August 6, 2010

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling (Paperback)

After reading Gatto's "Underground History of American Education" I must take my place amongst the fence-sitters. Before giving my reasons, I should give a bit of background. I am a former public school teacher who left disillusioned for reasons similar to Gatto. I do not support the public school system and have much ideological affinity with Gatto (so I am not biased against his point of view). Currently, I am a PhD student studying the philosophy and history of education (so I believe I'm relatively competent to judge this history as history).

That said...

I really wanted to love this book, and ideologically, I did. I agree much with Gatto's depiction of public ed's history as one that seeks to homogenize and discipline people rather than to encourage independent thought and learning. I agree with Gatto's assessment that the education "system" existing before public ed was generally better than is portrayed in most education history books (for a good book about this read Market Education: The Unknown History (Studies in Social Philosophy and Policy)), and that the entrepreneurial spirit is much more likely to come from self-education than standardized, mass, compuslory education.

The two stars I subtracted are for the insufficient documentation this book provides. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence, and anyone looking for the latter (regardless of whether they agree with Gatto's former) will be disappointed! Simply put, there are no citations in this book. Even direct quotes are not accompanied by citations, connoting an absolute breach of fair play.

While I happen to know that many of Gatto's facts and assessments are correct - Horace Mann was a phrenology enthusiast who extolled Prussian education without ever seeing it, that 'scientific management' and corporate practice has had overwhelming influence in how we do public ed - there were other facts I wanted to verify. Gatto tends to quote small snippets rather than large blocks of text, which made me want to check some of his sources to see if the quotes were in context. (I was able to track down an ecopy of Carnegie's "Empire of Business" and can attest that Gatto indeed made the book sound more devious than it actually is.) There are also a few other reviewers who have checked several of Gatto's other facts and found them to be inaccurate. But, this is why citations are generally included in histories.

Another problem with the book for which I did not deduct stars but debated on it was the book's scattered format. This book is not in any way a linear history as would be expected. Instead, it is a very scattered collection of short essays - most historical but some personal reflections and polemics - and all of this makes the book seem very unprofessional.

I am giving the book three stars because the facts I do know about the history of education align decently well with Gatto's interpretation. Even reading "mainstream" histories, like Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America, and Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Phoenix Books), it is virtually impossible to read educational history as anything but one dominant group (business, protestantism, etc) trying to use schools to mold the minds of everyone a certain way. (Also, check out cases like Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Ohio v. Quigley also.)

I cannot, however, give this book four or even five stars for the very glaring (and a bit suspicious) omission of citations, and for its very unprofessional style. Overall, an interesting book but far short of what it should have been.