- ISBN13: 9781933995922
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Everyone from Bono to the United Nations is looking for a miracle to bring schooling within reach of the poorest children on Earth. James Tooley found one hiding in plain sight. While researching private schools in India for the World Bank, and worried he was doing little to help the poor, Tooley wandered into the slums of Hyderabad’s Old City. Shocked to find it overflowing with tiny, parentfunded schools filled with energized students, he set out to discover if sc… More >>
The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves
I thought this book was superb! I have traveled all over the world too and found similar things as this author found. The Do gooders of the world look down on dirt poor people as being unable to decide what is best for their kids. Tooley talks about this in his book and guess what, the intellectuals throwing aid money around are doing more damage than good in the field of education. I knew the author had integrity right away when he admitted that he flew around first class and stayed in fancy hotels, all to supposedly help the POOR! Amazing stuff and it does not surprise me at all that the World Bank etc. do not want to listen to this man and what he has found. I guess that is why he is working with the Cato Institute. It is so discouraging and most of what he writes about in this book can be said about the American ‘education’ system too. Teacher’s unions are against vouchers because they would make teachers/administrators accountable and that scares the heck out of many administrators and teachers.
Rating: 5 / 5
I very much enjoy writing which challenges “conventional wisdom” with first hand research. This book accomplishes that task superbly. Our educational establishment assumes that learning is mostly a function of highly credentialed teachers working in schools which are built to the best standards with small classes. The common wisdom is supported by the academic educational elite, in concert with politicians and teachers’ union officials, with little regard for either the practical wisdom and concerns of parents or for measurable proof of their contentions. Tooley has traveled some of the poorest regions of the world and found a vibrant educational “industry” operating in hovels, at a (very small) profit, sustained by parents of no means with results far outdistancing the supposedly “free” schools provided by governments and international aid agencies. The principal difference between private schools for the poor and government schools for all is in the degree of direct accountability to the parens implicit in private schools. This book makes a passionate and moving case for some type of voucher system to supplant the inefficient and ineffective government educational programs in developed, as well as undeveloped, countries.
Rating: 5 / 5
Many have searched for a way of bringing schooling to the poorest children in the world, but THE BEAUTIFUL TREE may hold the answer. Professor Tooley wandered into the slums of Africa’s Hyderabad Old City – there to find it packed with small, parent-funded schools. His travels throughout the world in search of those establishing similar grassroots educational programs offers some startling, inspirational insights for any interested in world education processes at a very basic level.
Rating: 5 / 5
“… it’s a peculiarly modern and unhelpful mistake to conflate education with schooling,” James Tooley observes in The Beautiful Tree. Schooling is about where one goes, while education is about what one actually learns. This book will give you an education.
To begin near the end of the book, Tooley’s historical research indicates the state-run education system in Britain started with for-profit and philanthropic schools that were gradually taken over by the government (I suspect the same process occurred in America). However, in exporting education to the developing world, both during the colonial era and the modern age of foreign aid, we’ve gotten it exactly backwards, sponsoring massive state-run projects with all the bloat, corruption and lack of accountability one would expect. There’s a lot of schooling going on, but very little education. The development and aid experts all recommend time, patience, and of course, more funding.
The surprising good news Tooley chronicles is that even the poorest and most isolated communities in the developing world are doing for themselves instead of waiting for others to do for them. He finds small private schools in slums, fishing villages and remote mountain towns, and provides objective evidence that these private schools are succeeding on a pittance where well-funded public schools are little more than day-care centers, or are too remote for rural children to get to.
This is all wonderful, and left me wondering, “What can we in the developed world do to help?” Tooley recommends more capitalism: carefully targeted vouchers for the poorest of the poor, microfinance loans to help private schools improve their facilities, and eventually turning the best of the private schools into franchises or chains.
Will a capitalist approach to education succeed in the developing world? It could hardly do worse than the present sorry situation. I lack Mr. Tooley’s optimism about the uneclipsed virtue of capitalism, simply because concentrations of power, money and influence will always tempt the fallen angels of our nature, whether the concentrations occur in government, development agencies, business or even religion. To his credit, he is taking a gradual, small-scale approach to cultivating “the beautiful tree”. I can only hope that those who follow his lead will remember that the point is education, not merely making a buck.
Rating: 4 / 5
Interesting and challenging travels around the world, discovering an abundance of true modern education being demanded and delivered to the poor by small time entrepreneurs – in spite of governments, aid agencies, and education “experts.”
The corruption and incompetence of public education systems the world over can be illuminating to the problems of American and British systems as well.
The lesson: Get your child out of any public system and into private instruction by any means possible.
The insight: Aid experts, agency authorities, liberal intellectuals, politicians have unjustified, rationalistic contempt for the poor, considering them essentially sub-human, unable to judge results for themselves, having no personal values and goals for themselves or their children, and needing to have the wisdom and policies of their betters forced upon them. Empirical evaluation of this assumption and the consequences of policies is not needed – only more tax money.
Commercial schools and teachers are typically more able and more committed to educating children than state certified ones. Motivated by their desire to win customers and the respect of their communities.
Tooley fails to generalize his understanding to the benefits and morality of capitalism (free choice, trade) to all areas of life. Perhaps he is focusing on one battle at a time?
Assisting with Tooley’s work and the publication of this book alone justifies the existence of the Cato Institute – not to mention their many other valuable publications.
Rating: 4 / 5