ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND HIS BOOKS
Richard G. Neal is well qualified to expose the failures of public schools and the promises of freedom in school choice. He has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, as well as adult education, community college and graduate school. He progressed through the ranks of assistant principal, principal, supervisor, director, and associate superintendent in large school districts. He also served as the head of a large adult education program. Early in his career Neal served several years as the executive director of a large teachers’ association. In mid-career, Neal left the public schools to serve as the associate director of a large consulting firm specializing in school management. During that period, he provided instructional programs on labor relations for school district manages and school board members throughout the U.S. and Canada. His many books and articles on labor relations have given needed assistance to thousands of school board members and their management teams. As a corollary to that function, he served nationally as chief negotiator for numerous school districts. Simultaneously, he was the executive director of the National Association of Educational Negotiators, and the National Association of Negotiators and Contract Administrators. Next, Neal became a nationally known consultant on how to decentralize centrally administered school districts through the process of school-based management, conducting seminars and training programs nationally for school management personnel and teachers. His strategies are described in his books and articles on school-based management. All told, Neal has written 26 books and 70 articles, and served as the editor of several journals. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, George Washington University, and Ohio State University. He served on active duty as a seaman in the U.S Navy and as an officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.
Neal currently writes a monthly column on school choice and has just completed a series of four books on that subject.
The first book in this series, Escape to Learning: An Educator’s Answer to the Public School Crisis, identifies and discusses the root causes of the failures of government schools and offers specific remedies. The public schools are extremely resistant to improvements because of the powerful Education Establishment, composed of entrenched teacher unions, school educrats, and pandering politicians. The book discusses all of the reasons that a monolithic and monopolistic school system cannot meet the pluralistic needs and interests of children through a one-size-fits-all model. The author explains why more money in not the answer, how monopoly union bargaining has damaged the schools, and how over regulation has destroyed all hope of meaningful improvements. The author exposes the myth that teachers are overworked and underpaid, shows why it is almost impossible to fire incompetent teachers, and provides reasons why merit pay is not the answer. The author concludes that the only solution to the failing government schools is to introduce freedom of school choice without double taxation. This would take education away from government agents and put it back where it belongs – in the hands of parents.
In The second book in this series, The Deserved Collapse of Public Schools: How We Have Been Hornswoggled and Bamboozled – Even Flummoxed and Hoodwinked, the major failures of public schools are exposed in detail: student achievement stagnation, millions of dropouts, unqualified graduates, unassimilated immigrants, rampant student misbehavior, and wasted billions of dollars. The book exposes the fraudulent “solutions” by The Education Establishment: more money, federal “aid”, increased teacher salaries, class-size reductions, more useless teacher certification requirements, larger schools and larger school districts, and state-sponsored school accreditation.
The third book in the series, The Alliance Against Education Reform: How Board Members, Administrators, Professors, State Bureaucrats, Federal Officials, Politicians, and Teacher Unions Have United Against Real Education Reform, consists of two parts. The first part reveals how and why teacher unions have achieved a stranglehold over our public schools, stopping all changes they view as a threat. The author traces the growth of teacher unionism from the 1960’s, as it rapidly became a dominant force against education improvements through the extensive exercise of monopoly bargaining and hardball politics. The second part of this book reveals how school administrators, school board members, state education officials, the federal government, colleges of education, and politicians have entered into a tacit agreement with teacher unions to resist any significant reform in elementary and secondary public education that threatens the status quo – especially if any changes allow for real freedom of school choice. The Education Establishment is composed of hundreds of special interests and organizations that are deeply imbedded throughout the system. They all share one common bond that makes their existence possible – monopolized government schools. The public schools have become an enterprise where the adults benefit more than the students.
The fourth book in the series, School Choice After the Collapse of Public Schools: An Insider’s View of Why Choice is the Only Cure for the Failure of Public Schools, is a crowning indictment of monopolized compulsory government school attendance. The author finds that 10 million (one in five) school-age children have rejected the public schools. He constructs an imaginative education system based on choice that serves the best interests of all students and the legitimate interests of the state. To achieve this, the author has identified the specific pre-conditions that must exist to assure successful education choice. The book exposes the anti-learning aspects of government schools, and contrasts that with what real freedom of learning looks like. The author predicts that the increasing failures of government schools and the availability of learning technologies will eventually free all students to achieve their fullest potentials.
Another book, although unrelated to school choice, should be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers. Richard Neal is the co-author of Making Good Things Happen: Negotiating For A Better Life. Drawing upon years of negotiation experiences, the book contains over 300 negotiation strategies and tactics arranged in sequence from preparing for negotiations to how to handle impasses. The techniques discussed are easy to understand and are applicable to the many challenges that people face throughout life. This no-nonsense book is a gold mine of practical advice that can be used on the job or in one’s personal life.