Review date:
08/01/2007
Escape from Public Schools is the Only Answer
(Escape To Learning: An Educator’s Answer to the Public School Crisis. Richard G. Neal: AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN, 2005. 192 pages, paperback, ISBN: 1-4208-3890-3-sc)
In this book, bound tightly by an anecdotal narration of unparalleled and extensive experiences in every nook and cranny of the public schools across five decades, Richard Neal gives us an insider’s view of the hopeless bureaucratic jungle of the monopolistic and monolithic government schools. Driven by the needs of bureaucracy, politics and teacher unions, parents and their children have become powerless. The internationally distinguishing feature of American life is choice – freedom of choice in everything – except when it comes to de facto compulsory public school attendance. The author maintains that unchallenged the public schools will never change. The only solution is escape via equitably differentiated vouchers, free from government control.
“It seems common sense” Neal asserts, to offer choice to parents as to what learning programs their children attend. However, the debate over this issue has embroiled America while doing little to benefit student learning. The author has experienced the system’s flaws firsthand having served as a teacher at all levels – elementary, secondary, adult education, community college and graduate school. In addition Neal served as an assistant principal, principal, supervisor, director, associate superintendent, labor relations consultant, chief negotiator for school boards, and as a pioneer in decentralized management. He is the author of numerous books and articles on school management.
Based upon his varied and practical experiences and his research, his book, Escape To Learning, draws a number of overarching conclusions:
· Government schools severely limit learning opportunities.
· Government schools are almost immune to change.
· Teacher unions and collective bargaining are the chief enemies of education reform.
· Teacher pay methods waste vast sums of money, overpaying some teachers while underpaying others.
· The inability to dismiss deserving teachers is a cancer on the system.
· There are many rich advantages to school choice.
· Most of the arguments against choice are bogus. The author shows why.
· Parents should have education choice for their children based upon a unique system of equitably differentiated vouchers free from government control.
· Reform of the public schools is futile. The only solution is to escape.
|