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Charles Murray

Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality Paperback – Illustrated, August 25, 2009

by Charles Murray (Author)

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"The most talked-about education book this semester." —New York Times

From the author of Coming Apart, and based on a series of controversial Wall Street Journal op-eds, this landmark manifesto gives voice to what everyone knows about talent, ability, and intelligence but no one wants to admit. With four 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, but America’s educational system does its best to ignore this.

•Half of the children are below average. Many children cannot learn more than rudimentary reading and math. Yet decades of policies have required schools to divert resources to unattainable goals.

•Too many people are going to college. Only a fraction of students struggling to get a degree can profit from education at the college level.

•America’s future depends on how we educate the academically gifted. It is time to start thinking about the kind of education needed by the young people who will run the country.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Takes a moral sledgehammer to our one-size-fits-all education mind-set."
—Washington Times

"It is astonishing to see plain common sense written about education, a topic I had thought long since drowned deep beneath an ocean of nonsense, venality, and lies."
—John Derbyshire, National Review Online

“Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” said a well-known educator, albeit in a religious schooling context. Charles Murray is concerned with the secular world of education, nonetheless his message is worthy of evangelism: Tell the truth, and the truth shall make you free of foolish, cruel, and counter-productive educational policies.”
—P. J. O'Rourke

“Charles Murray, arguably the most consequential social scientist alive, has discovered a nifty formula for fame (or infamy): One, in lucid, graceful prose describe reality using evidence and logic. Two, propose policies that actually take reality into consideration. And, three, sit back and wait for the inevitable caterwauling and lamentations of those who insist reality isn’t real and who swear the crooked timber of humanity is nothing more than the malleable clay of utopian social engineers. Real Education follows this recipe perfectly. Even now, if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear throats being cleared for the caterwauling to come.”
—Jonah Goldberg, bestselling author of Liberal Fascism

“Charles Murray is one professional contrarian who cannot be written off–not since his first book, Losing Ground, led to a complete restructuring of America’s welfare system. At first Real Education, with its plan for identifying “the elite,” may strike you as an elaboration of his hotly contested views on IQ. But suddenly–swock!–he pops a gasper: a practical plan for literally reproducing, re-creating, a new generation of Jeffersons, Adamses, Franklins, and Hamiltons, educated, drilled, steeped, marinated in those worthies’ concern for the Good and Virtuous with a capital V–nothing less than an elite of Founding Great-great-great-great-great Grandchildren.”
—Tom Wolfe

About the Author

CHARLES MURRAY is the author of two of the most widely debated and influential social policy books in the last three decades, Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980 and, with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. He is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

Product details

ASIN : 0307405397
Publisher : Crown Forum; Illustrated edition (August 25, 2009)
Language : English
Paperback : 224 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780307405395
ISBN-13 : 978-0307405395
Item Weight : 6.1 ounces
Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #186,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #170 in Children's Studies Social Science (Books)
- #327 in History of Education
- #385 in Education Assessment (Books)

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George Anast

Learn about learning

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2016

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This is a fine book on an important subject. Murray's writing is conversational, clear, and at times humorous. If you are interested in what education is all about, this book will set you straight. It should be mandatory reading for all teachers and educational administrators. It exudes common sense and hence may be shunned by the educational establishment. Murray is a a very perceptive fellow.

10 people found this helpful

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Michael T Kennedy

Some simple truths about education.

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2010

Verified Purchase

I came across this book recently but its message is still timely. It is a fact that half the students in school today are below average. Of course, this is the definition of average. I would not say that half of them are below average IQ because there are thousands of children at the bottom of the scale who are not in school, or at least academic school, at all. Still, it is an important consideration that academic potential is determined in very early childhood, perhaps before birth. There is great resistance to accepting this for several reasons. One is the "educational romanticism" that Murray describes and which no doubts motivates many teachers. This is the theory that all children can succeed. They can succeed but at different levels of academic achievement. Murray uses the example of the teenager forced to choose between going to college and becoming an electrician. The choice should be obvious if he is skilled at the one and not the other. College degrees have a magical quality to many young people who believe that life will not be worthwhile without the academic symbol.

I have a nephew who has a BA and has just completed an apprenticeship in a technical trade. Will the degree help him in his trade ? Probably not. Was it worthwhile ? Only time will tell. Murray makes the point that children are pretty much preselected for verbal and mathematical ability very early in life. Their accomplishments in math beyond arithmetic and reading dense prose may never respond to the best teaching available. He suggests that competitive programs like No Child Left Behind are examples of educational romanticism. They will have minimal effect with children in average schools. This should be reassuring to teachers yet I suspect that many will rebel at the conclusion.

He has many suggestions for curriculum which is being distorted by one of the many fads that sweep through education from time to time. The "progressive education" fad is dominant right now. With colleges, he suggests that far too many young people are going to college now and that most college curricula are doing them little good, even the most academically talented of them.

I agree with almost everything he says but I do notice that there is no mention of race. I understand why and I know why it would make his argument less palatable to many but it is still the elephant in the room.

19 people found this helpful

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Katie R.

Insight without solutions

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2012

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It's slightly alarming to agree with Murray, but there it is.

Real Education outlines why our educational system doesn't work and how we can fix it. However, it's not your usual "schools are underfunded" or "teachers are not trained well" or "teachers' unions prevent real change" (the list could go on).

Murray says what has become far too taboo in our culture: not every child should go to college, not every child can do well academically, and, most horrifying to our national narrative of education, about half of children are below average in academic intelligence.

WHAT!?

I say, "YES!" I've thought this for a long time--since President Clinton said, "Everyone should go to college" without any caveats as to what kind or with what kind of goals.

Murray argues for the value of different kinds of intelligence (spatial, physical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical) aside from academic (logical and linguistic). He rightly asserts that pushing children who are "below average" in academic intelligence to read and do math at "grade level" actually does them a disservice. All children should be given the opportunity to learn in academic areas, but they should also be given educational opportunities in other areas where they may excel--with the hope that they can harness those talents and skills for their career, rather than going to college to struggle through a liberal arts degree that doesn't mean that much for them.

He makes a number of valuable points:

--The BA (he uses this as shorthand for all Bachelor's degrees) should not be prerequisite for the majority of jobs as it currently is;
--The quality of our schools should not be measured by all students performing at "grade level"; instead there needs to be a better understanding of what "average" means and what that means for test scores;
--Schools should work to help all children find areas in which they do well, including assessing students for different types of intelligence;
--All students should have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment with good teachers, but aside from the most troubled urban schools the differences between schools are not as huge as we think (I would include the most troubled rural schools with the urban);
--The aims of a "liberal education" that we receive in college should be given in K-12, particularly in grades K-8, so that all individuals are exposed to other cultures and ideas;
--Certification tests should be used as entrance to a variety of careers.

I find his assertions about the role of the academically gifted in society compelling, but I can't overcome the sense that it's a veiled kind of elitism. I imagine this is ultimate the difference in rhetoric that arises between a libertarian and a liberal-progressive.

My main problem with the book, however, is how Murray suggests we achieve this kind of system. He asserts that the change can come by making the research on the subject public, expand choice (vouchers, charter schools, home schooling), rely on the decisions of parents, rely on the recognition of the problem by educators....

Basically, leave government out of it. Obviously this comes down to, again, libertarian vs. liberal-progressive. But Murray has so many AMAZING goals in this book, ideas that made me think, "OOOOH! Let's make that happen!" But he's talking about massive societal change. If he thinks that's going to come by some parents and educators changing how they do things, he's dreaming. It's going to come from those parents and educators advocating for larger change and policy that will bring it. Maybe it will happen locally or regionally, especially at first, but it will ultimately have to be policy from the government.

Real Education is an excellent read and provides really revolutionary ideas for education reform. I highly recommend it.

15 people found this helpful

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S Smyth

A book for our time.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2011

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A book that comprehensively clarifies what astute parents already know/suspect. A book that should be read and understood by those in government and in education authorities who formulate education policy, and by parents who want to better direct their kids, so that heir kids are less likely to be misdirected into lines of education for which their kids are ill-suited, and thus be better able to achieve a lot more, than hey are too often encouraged to pursue.

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