Think that the education system serves our children? Think again.Shining light on the special interests controlling our schools, where politics and pork infuse everything and our childrens education is compromised, journalist Joe Williams shows how parents can use consumer power to put children first. He argues that increased accountability and choice are necessary, and shows how the people can take back the education system, enhancing responsibility inherent in dem… More >>
#1 by Whitney R. Tilson on July 2, 2010 - 5:44 pm
I just finished reading Williams’s book and HIGHLY recommend it. In it, he exposes in great detail the many outrageous ways that our public school system is controlled by adults and run for their benefit, rather than the children. It’s infuriating, yet also hopeful, as he shows how Milwaukee’s parents were able to win enormous changes, and outlines a guidebook for parents and activists everywhere.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Michael Piscal on July 2, 2010 - 6:26 pm
Trying to find how school districts work is difficult. Transparency is hard to come by and this is deliberately so. Joe Williams breaks down the wall of obfuscation, the lies, and tells it like it is. My only regret is that he does not site more examples of the corruption that goes on in building new schools.
Los Angeles Unified School District is in the midst of a $19 billion school construction project – the largest in U.S. History. Precious little has been written about this monumental and historical occurence. I fear that the Fourth Estate is not up to the task of protecting the public. What editor would allow a reporter to spend months researching the byzantine passages of public construction bids, self-dealing, and the intracacies of change orders? It would win a Pulitzer if done right, but the economics of the newspaper business make it a remote possibility. Many reporters have to produce three to four stories a week! How can they dive into the five hundred layers of confusion in two days and write a credible story? Even if they spent three months, they would barely tap the surface.
That’s why Joe Williams book is so important. It is an amazing start.
I just bought 12 copies of this book for my parent leaders.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Richard Gibson on July 2, 2010 - 7:40 pm
This is another book on why our public schools stink. Unlike most other such books, Williams does not care about curriculum, class-size, academic standards or the other stand-bys of the education reform movement. What Williams cares about is power. Our schools stink, not because their curriculum is bad, classes are too big or what-not, says Williams. Our schools stink, because all power in them is held by adults who put their own self-interest ahead of the kids. Williams tries to be even-handed about this. He discusses a number of adult groups that put themselves ahead of the kids, such as vendors. In the end, however, he is really just talking about the teachers union. The teachers union is an extremely powerful organization. Frankly, it is one of the most powerful groups within the Democratic Party, on a national level, so its political power is big league. Within the arena of education, on the local and state level, the teachers union is Godzilla; its level of power simply dwarves everyone else in the room.
Our schools will not be better, argues Williams, until parents have power in them. Parents will not have any power until they can control who gets the money for educating their kids. Williams is thus an enthusiastic supporter of school choice of all types.
What makes this book stand-out is its simplicity, bluntness and factual specificity. Williams is an education reporter, most of whose experience was in Milwaukee and New York City. He backs what he says with very specific horror stories. He writes in a way that makes the issues simple and easy to understand.
He also is very sensitive to how this issue cuts across the usual political lines. School choice, of course, is generally seen as a right-wing issue. Williams describes how it succeeded in Milwaukee only by creating a coalition of angry, black, poor parents — often very far to the Left in their thinking — united with business and right-wing types.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by R. M. Self on July 2, 2010 - 9:32 pm
Teachers unions, as most informed citizens know, have done more to damage schools in the last 50 years than any other entity. These groups raely if ever put kids first, instead installing a system where it is next to impossible to fire teachers while convincing vast chunks of the general public that hard luck teachers are somehow underpaid (ha!). Bravo to this illuminating work!
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Kevin Currie-Knight on July 2, 2010 - 11:49 pm
We have a vision in our heads that in order to be a part of education, one must be the type of unselfish person who is wholly dedicated to improving the lot of students. We imagine that education is all about the kids and that no one who would call themselves and educator or administrator would deam of putting themselves before that goal.
Sad to say, but this story is not the reality. Like anyone else, even teachers and administrators are often self-=interested. Teachers join unions (whose primary allegiance is to make teacher’s rewards greater), boards of ed care about public relations every bit as much as helping students, and politicians just want to say anything that will simulteneously help their electoral campaigns while not offending any special interest groups.
Joe Williams’s book is an investigative expose of this world of furtive self-interests that we call the public school system. He devotes chapters to every single group who dares to pay lip service to helping students while really playing self-interested politics as usual. The main targets are the predictable ones: the teachers unions and the politicians. The former is taken to task for putting effective strangle-holds on any attempts to try and introduce any kind of accountability into the teaching profession. The latter is called to account for their staggering ineptitude to do anything but spit tired rhetoric. Williams gives example after example of both groups failure to produce anything beneficial to the students.
A reviewer below takes the reporter to task for not being objective, fair, and balanced in his reporting. This is true… but it is true of all investigative journalism of this kind. In addition to his fact-presenting, Williams does opine quite a bit. But he never name-calls and, contrary to the below reviewer’s assertion, does not stump for any political party. (He takes republicans to task only a slight bit less than democrats.)
Really, Cheating Our Kids can and should be seen as a journalist’s confirmation of (what is called) public choice theory. Public choice theory boils down to the simple idea that government is every bit as self-interested as business people and should always be seen as such. Bureaucracies are generally self-serving and -perpetuating, politics is plagued by special interests (who look out for themselves rather than the good of all), and politicians care first and foremost about elections, rather than doing good. Anyone who likes this book and wants to explore the self-serving nature of bureacracies (of which the public schools are apotheoses), should read economist Ludwig von Mises’sBUREAUCRACY (Lib Works Ludwig Von Mises PB) or sociologist James Wilson’s Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It (Basic Books Classics).
The reader should also be forewarned that the author speaks very highly of a voucher system and much of the book argues in favor of such an approach. I find it desirable, but others may be offput.
Rating: 4 / 5