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Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Murray
Publisher: Crown Forum
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 3989
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 0307405389
Dewey Decimal Number: 370.973
EAN: 9780307405388
ASIN: 0307405389
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20080925221651H
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Product Description
With four simple 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 academic material. Doing our best for every child requires, above all else, that we embrace that simplest of truths. America’s educational system does its best to ignore it.
Half of the children are below average. Many children cannot learn more than rudimentary reading and math. Real Education reviews what we know about the limits of what schools can do and the results of four decades of policies that require schools to divert huge resources to unattainable goals.
Too many people are going to college. Almost everyone should get training beyond high school, but the number of students who want, need, or can profit from four years of residential education at the college level is a fraction of the number of young people who are struggling to get a degree. We have set up a standard known as the BA, stripped it of its traditional content, and made it an artificial job qualification. Then we stigmatize everyone who doesn’t get one. For most of America’s young people, today’s college system is a punishing anachronism.
America’s future depends on how we educate the academically gifted. An elite already runs the country, whether we like it or not. Since everything we watch, hear, and read is produced by that elite, and since every business and government department is run by that elite, it is time to start thinking about the kind of education needed by the young people who will run the country. The task is not to give them more advanced technical training, but to give them an education that will make them into wiser adults; not to pamper them, but to hold their feet to the fire.
The good news is that change is not only possible but already happening. Real Education describes the technological and economic trends that are creating options for parents who want the right education for their children, teachers who want to be free to teach again, and young people who want to find something they love doing and learn how to do it well. These are the people for whom Real Education was written. It is they, not the politicians or the educational establishment, who will bring American schools back to reality.
Twenty-four years ago, Charles Murray’s Losing Ground changed the way the nation thought about welfare. Real Education is about to do the same thing for America’s schools.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Fascinating book! October 13, 2008
This is a fascinating book that I recommend to anyone! I am neither an educator nor a social scientist (nor, I might add, a social conservative) - just someone deeply concerned with the state of education in this country.
The book is written clearly and in an engaging style, and the information it puts forth is common-sense and logical.
Half of all people are below average in their academic ability. That's just statistics. Murray doesn't say that we should neglect the less academically-able; he doesn't say or imply that we should worship the smart and cast aside the dumb. He says we should embrace the immutable (and obvious) fact that people are different and work with it instead of struggle against it, to maximise the happiness of all. We ARE leaving children (and the future of our country) behind - because our goals are wrong.
The caveat here of course (as always) is: how to determine ability? Our tests are good (I am willing to concede that) but are they good enough? Taken to an extreme, testing to sort children could create a Socialist or even GATTACA-like system, where choices are severely limited. And what of learning-disabled children, who have issues with testing? How do they fit into this model? The book does not address learning disability at all. It does, however, stress that everyone should be free to try everything - meaning all children would be allowed to attempt harder material, which means that the "sorting" imposed by the tests would not be rigid, just general guidelines which individuals could challenge. I found this reassuring.
I applaud the changes Murray suggests in the final part of the book (although I envision a super-chaotic transition period if these measures are undertaken). Removing the "stigma" of not having a college degree is a basic and brilliant concept. Not tolerating disruption in precollege education instead of catering to the disruptors - basic again, and what a change it would make for the children who want to learn and the teachers who want to teach. How wonderful it would be if teaching became an alluring, respected profession in this country. This could happen - it SHOULD happen.
I wish that everyone in America would read this book. I know "everyone" won't, but perhaps enough "people with power" will read it (instead of just pretend they have, and BS about it in inaccurate, soundbites-with-an-agenda as they tend to do about important books). Perhaps this will be the first blow to put a crack in the bell jar of denial we have been living in.
Plus, it's a great read - really, really fun.
Charles Murray Light October 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is another fantastic book by Murray though it is nothing like "The Bell Curve" or "Human Accomplishment" in the nature of statistical support. Rather, it reads like Murray light and focuses on some intriguing points. Should we do away with the false dichotomy of categorizing people as BA / non-BA when the BA does not mean what it used to? Kronman's book "Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life" is referred to as dealing best with the question of what education should be all about for the elite. Perhaps with my special interest in mind a better book that Murray does not mention is Neil Postman's "The End of Education" within which Postman outlines different sorts of narratives that are the sorts of paradigms that offer answers to questions of purpose. Still, Murray's book is a great read and touches on many of his favorite points. This book will serve as a good introduction to Murray's thinking for those that would otherwise be turned off by the size of most of his other books.
Four simple points that show how we need to reform and free our educational system October 5, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a system of education that actually prepared everyone for happy and productive lives? Instead, we try to stuff everyone into procrustean k-12 model and wonder why we have so many "failures". Worse, we tell every high school graduate to go to college and too many college graduates end up at jobs at benefit not a bit from their expensive post high school education and the student often has a big chunk of debt to pay back. Why are we doing this to ourselves and our children? Who benefits from this present mess? As parents and taxpayers, we have to get the gumption to take back our educational system from the politicians and those who control our present system (and, no, it isn't the local school boards or the citizens).
This terrific book by Charles Murray makes four basic points.
1)Ability varies. You know this is true. Some people are good at sports. Some people are better at math. Others have strong verbal acuity and so forth. Murray examines the multiple-intelligence (seven intelligence) model and discusses the "g" measured in IQ tests, as well. The point is, if talents vary widely, our current system tries to adjust this necessary outcome by holding back the most talented rather than letting them zoom ahead, and it places burdens on the least talented that discourage them and keep them from becoming prepared for life with skills that can help them in jobs that can contribute to a happy and constructive life.
2)Half of the children are below average. No, we don't live in Lake Woebegon and no one really does. If you line up people by height, half of the children will be below average. If you have them run around the track, half of their times will be below average. If you have them perform math problems, write essays, make drawings, or play musical instruments, the range will run from the truly gifted in each to those who don't seem to understand the subject at all. And, yes, half will be below average. This is simply true. But it has strong implications of how your should set up an educational system. You cannot put the best basketball players and those who can barely stand on the same varsity basketball team and expect it to function let alone win. The same is true for every subject. The word segregation is radioactive so lets use differentiate. You may need to differentiate students to different schools based on talents, interests, and accomplishment in order to truly educate the students. An education is supposed to lift students from where they are to a better place in life. Not everyone is going to learn advanced calculus, but those that can should be given the best education to learn it and more. Each subject should be treated the same way.
3)Too many people are going to college. The issue is not that people aren't learning things in college; but that many of the kinds of remedial skills and core subjects now being taught in many undergraduate programs should be pushed back into effective high school programs. The same is true for vocational education that can help those who really need to be prepared for a trade or a job that requires skills rather than a four year degree. No one should be denied college who wants it, but the evidence is in that merely having a four year degree in many subjects does not provide a marketable skill that justifies the investment to obtain it. Yes, we want to give them enriching life experiences that a liberal arts education provides, but much of that can be done in high school by creating a more focused system that prepares people for happy and productive lives. We need to stop handing out meaningless diplomas that certify nothing about the skills, qualities, or accomplishments of the person holding it.
4)America's Future Depends on How We Educate the Academically Gifted. You don't win track meets by sending in just anyone from your high school. You send in those best at each event. Our technological society depends on knowledge, innovation, and creativity. Other countries from around the world do have competitive education systems and they are preparing many times the number of engineers and other knowledge based jobs. We will not be able to compete in the future unless we similarly identify our most gifted students and provide them with everything they need to magnify their gifts. Heaven knows we spend millions upon millions providing facilities for our athletes to train and compete at the highest levels. Why don't we do the same for our academic students where the stakes are real and the payoff is much higher?
Murray concludes the book by advocating the creation of an educational system that is more free and can truly adapt to the needs of the students rather than the teachers. He points out that merely paying teachers more won't change the quality of the teacher. What we need are better and more focused opportunities for the students. If that means letting new kinds of teachers teach, then so be it. If that means we need to created schools that focus on certain subjects, all the better. The point is that our current system is broken and for all the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend on education, the benefits of that spending are accruing to the wrong people. Our focus must be on the students, their lives, and the country we are passing on to future generations.
We can do better and Charles Murray has made a nice contribution to the discussion.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
An inconvenient fact October 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This will be a difficult read for many. Murray assails a fundamental American belief that anyone can succeed. He presents a fact that relatively few in America chose to acknowledge. Half of any population is below average. While the concept is well covered in our science, business and even graduate education courses it has been uniformly ignored by our elected officials, the education establishment and the electorate. Few, if any, want to acknowledge that goodwill and more money are insufficient to alter reality. The emperor is indeed without cloths. The prevailing educational policies are a disservice to all.
 Worthwhile but Poorly Argued October 1, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is worth your while if only because it is short; and it will reinforce what many readers interested in the subject will expect. Not everyone is smart enough for college, and we ought to emphasize educating our geniuses to lead as they will anyway.
However, ...
Murray's most important weapon is statistical correlation. "This correlates positively with that, thus they are related causally" and something is therefore TRUE. But most scientific proof does not rest on statistical correlation, it rests on falsifiability (it's right until it can be proved wrong and once is enough).
One of Murray's most important assumptions is that a person's IQ is pretty fixed. You are stuck with your IQ and not much can be done about it. BUT, should one person jump a standard deviation or more, it would destroy the very foundation of Murray's argument. Murray argues that all effort employed to teach poor kids up to a high standard is not worth the effort. I wonder how Obama tested at age four. If it can be done once, it can be done hundreds and thousands of times.
Other reasons can be cited for a lack of educational progress among the poor over forty years that may be more important than that group's IQs: peer group pressure to beat the system at its own game, everyone's lack of commitment for them to succeed at school (the system does not allow a teacher to demand that Johnny learns X), some kids just test poorly, and teachers keep getting worse (because of the respect and pay that society gives them).
Murray says, p. 135: "Just determine what the schools with the high pass rates are doing right, and make all schools do the same thing." Hmm, sounds like the super-string theory of teaching, a grand unified theory of teaching. I think what we know by now is that no theory works across the board. Maybe what works best is a teacher and student communicating effectively, not something you can replicate by "figuring out" what works best. It takes good teachers, who may be priced out of teaching in favor of a profession that pays better, like driving a taxicab.
Murray's advice that we teach to a kid's level inflicts self-fulfilling prophecies: you'll get what you expect. There has to be some middle ground between Murray's absolutistic notion that a kid's ability can't change and the Liberal establishment's absolutistic notion that everyone can grow up to be President (look what THAT got us, George W Bush, not anyone's model of a high-achieving student!).
Murray is concerned that a school can cripple brilliant Johnnie's future. Well, maybe, but schools didn't cripple Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Swift, Albert Einstein and a thousand other luminaries who hated school and their teachers; maybe part of real genius is toughness to withstand the influence of bad teachers. Besides, if you want better teachers, it's not about telling them how to teach, it's about attracting them to teach in the first place: get real, double teachers' salaries and watch who gravitates into teaching!
Murray seems to think that the best people get promoted in industry. Maybe he should spend ten years in industry. Industry is NOT a meritocracy; personal drive - not smarts, talent or ability - and knowing who to kiss up to, and being good at it, are WAY more important than smarts, talent or ability.
Murray thinks Home-Schooling is a valuable addition to a student's choice of schools: many use Home-Schooling to Not-School, and to avoid those science and history courses that disagree with their interpretation of the WORD of GOD.
Changing the educational goal to Certification to a skill undermines the notion that college ought to introduce a student to "a well-examined life." And aiming the ungifted at a skill rather than college does the same thing to them, keeps them from ever being exposed to the Liberal Arts notion of the well-examined life."
We really MUST educate the stupidest among us because they choose our political leadership and their numbers increase faster than everyone else's (evolutionarily, they ADD better than the rest of us brainiacs).
And, finally, in a few places Murray undermines his entire book by citing stupid examples: on p. 116, he mentions George Bush, Kenneth Lay (sic) (of Enron infamy) and Don Hewitt of CBS in the same breath as decision makers. Who, I'd like to know, won't raise an eyebrow seeing Ken Lay cited as a model decision-maker (maybe Murray was seeing if we were paying attention). Murray's other counterproductive citation is Bill Buckley on pp. 107-8, that it's be better to be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone directory than the Harvard faculty, in a chapter titled: America's Future Depends on How We Educate the Academically Gifted, as though Harvard professors are the way NOT to do it. Wow!
This review is choppy and I apologize. But Murray just bowls ahead sometimes as carelessly as this review, saying things that seem to him obvious but on simple reflection are just plain dumb wrong.
Nonetheless, his book is worth a read and worth considering. And it has some good web-site references.
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