Real Education: 4 Simple Truths to Reform America's Schools | Essential Guide for Teachers & Parents | Perfect for Classroom Improvement & Homeschooling

I enjoy reading books by Charles Murray. Although he identifies himself as a libertarian conservative, he's an independent thinker. While one would expect a conservative writer to extol the virtues of George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" initiative, Murray is very critical of it.Murray's 4 simple educational truths are:1) Ability varies2) Half of the children are below average3) Too many people are going to college4) America's future depends on how we educate the academically giftedIn the case of "ability varies," Murray focuses on academic ability, which correlates highly with intelligence. The simple truth is that "half of the children are below average" in academic ability. Research has shown that there's a normal ("bell curve") distribution of academic ability. It follows that half the children will be on the left side of the bell curve, i.e. below average.Murray next argues that there's not much that schools can do to improve performance of below-average ability children. This is much more controversial than the statement that half of the children are below average. Murray presents actual questions from standardized tests that below-average ability children have problems answering. These are pretty simple questions, and it's surprising that so many children have difficulties with them. The fact that they can't answer them, however, could be indicative of a problem with the schools, not their lack of intelligence.Murray then discusses various programs designed to improve students' test scores, including preschool programs (Abecedarian Project and Infant Health and Development Program), and elementary/secondary school programs (Title I and No Child Left Behind). His conclusion is that these programs produced little to no improvement in student achievement.What about the terrible quality of many American public schools, including chaotic and sometimes violent classrooms, incompetent teachers, low standards, and dearth of teaching resources such as textbooks and computers? Murray states that these "worst of the worst" inner-city schools only affect about 2 to 3 percent of all students.I have a few criticisms of Murray's argument. The first has to do with the way the book is structured. In a chapter that focuses on below-average students, Murray makes his case that schools can't do much to lift student achievement. Murray separately discusses gifted children in another chapter. He doesn't have much to say, however, about average and above-average (but not gifted) children. Wouldn't better schools help improve scores of average and above-average students? Wouldn't these students have more potential to achieve than below-average students?I'm also not convinced that schools can't do better for below-average students. Murray says that failing public schools only affect 2 to 3 percent of all students. But these are the "worst of the worst", the most extreme examples of poor schools. Is he implying that no other public schools have problems with lack of discipline, gangs, violence, incompetent teachers, and low standards? In other words, that 97% of American public schools today have absolutely no problems? I think that many schools have similar problems, but not just as extreme as the worst of the worst inner city schools. Students in these moderately bad schools can perform better if their schools had higher standards.Murray's next educational truth is that too many people are going to college. He makes some good arguments that many people, including some who have the ability to get a bachelor's degree, would do better in some other type of post-secondary education. He uses an example of a young man deciding whether to become an electrician or white-collar manager. He's smart enough to get his bachelor's degree in business, but is this the right choice? He has special small-motor and spatial skills that would make him a good electrician. He'd probably be an average manager. Based on his abilities, interests, and future career opportunities (mediocre managers are much more likely to be laid off than top electricians), becoming an electrician would be a good option. In fact, skilled technicians and artisans are in high demand even in this recession, while many white collar jobs have been downsized and outsourced.There are many students such as the one described in the above paragraph, who choose a 4-year college over other options (e.g. technical school, community college, or apprenticeship). The reason why they choose college is that their parents, teachers, and guidance counselors push them in this direction. The reason why adults push children into college is that our society has made the bachelor's degree a requirement for professional success. Murray questions this cultural worship of the bachelor's degree.Murray next discusses education of the gifted. America's future depends on the (unelected) intellectual elite, those who have risen to the top jobs that directly impact the nation's culture, economy, and politics, along with those who influence smaller communities.Gifted children should be allowed to advance at their own pace, not be held back by their peers. This could include skipping grades, or getting advanced material within their age-appropriate grade.Murray focuses on training the gifted to be good citizens. This training should continue through college. "We need to structure their education so that they have the best possible chance to become not just knowledgeable but wise" (p. 112). Murray's wisdom training of the gifted includes improving their verbal skills, teaching them how to make sound judgments, teaching them how to think about ethical issues, and teaching them humility.In conclusion, this book provides a different and valuable perspective on the failings in American schools. We need to be more realistic about the capabilities of below-average students, we need to offer more students an alternative to college, and we need to provide better wisdom-training of the gifted. I feel that Murray is too pessimistic about the capability of public schools to improve student academic performance, especially for average and above-average students. I recommend this book as an independent perspective on American education.Let us consider the four simple truths offered up for our contemplation.1. Abilities differ. Frankly, I don't see how anyone playing with a full deck could disagree with this. It's one of the first things we all notice while growing up: people are different. And they are not "just a little different," my friends. People are VASTLY different. Consider Charles Manson and Norman Borlaug, just for starters. (Yes, Google "Norman Borlaug" if you have never heard that name!!!)2. Half of any population sample is below average for that sample. This is something impossible to disagree with, because it is a tautology. The word AVERAGE means exactly that: 50 percent come in higher, and 50 percent come in lower. (Math experts need to substitute the word "median" for the word "average" here, but the facts remain the same.)3. Too many Americans are going to college, plus related insights. I believe that the current occupant of the Oval Office has gone on record saying that everyone in America has the "right" to a college education.4. The fourth truth --- that our future depends on teaching our future leaders well --- may just possibly be controversial, so I won't even touch that. What I will do is to present the reader of this review with the same problem which the author of "Real Education" presents his readers.QUESTION: Company Bling XYZ had ninety employees a year ago. Since then, the number of employees has increased by ten percent. How many employees does company Bling XYZ employ now? (a) 100 (b) 109 (c) 99 (d) 110.Almost half of the school-children tested could not answer this question. This is the reality lying behind such abstract ideas as "abilities differ," and "half of the American people are below-average in intelligence." There are, in fact, a lot of interesting and voting people who do not instantly see that the answer to this question is (c) 99.Would you send these people to college?My own path to realizing the truth of all this comes from experience in real, live teaching. I taught high-school in Gabes, Tunisia for a year, and in Tunis for another. I taught English in Iran for another two years, and then I taught in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a few more years. When I read articles or propaganda pieces on the Web which talked stuff & nonsense like "UNIVERSAL QUALITY EDUCATION," I began classing such fools as people whom Charles Murray calls "educational romantics." How could we possibly do something as "simple" as "universal quality education?"Well, how about "universally excellent teachers?" Some new magic (or some new government agency) is suddenly going to cook up a recipe which will make all teachers uniformly excellent? Aside from the obvious fact that teacher excellence is NOT a "uniform government product," but a special gift of some brilliant people ("Teachers, like musicians, are born, not made."), how could anyone imagine that some magic process is going to make all people equal at doing anything? I mean, if you want to make me into a physicist or a figure skater, have at it, dudes.The second problem, of course, is "universally excellent students," an idea which will bring a hearty laugh to any experienced teacher --- except, perhaps, those who have been lucky enough to teach only pre-med students.The path to better education includes taking these facts into account. There is no "blank slate," and one size never fits all.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.