Market Education

by Coulson, Andrew J.

• ISBN13: 9781560004080
• ISBN10: 1560004088
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Transaction Pub

Summary

Market Education explores the educational problems facing parents and shows how these problems can best be addressed. He begins with a discussion of what people want from their school systems, tracing their views of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and values education should impart, and their concerns over discipline, drugs, and violence in public schools. Using this survey of goals and attitudes as a guide, Coulson sets out to compare the school systems of civilizations both ancient and modern, seeking to determine which systems successfully educated generations past and which did not. His historical study ranges from classical Greece and ancient Rome, through the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, to nineteenth-century England and modern America.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Part I. What We Want	7	(30)
1. Getting Used to Disappointment	7	(30)
Part II. What's Been Tried	37	(256)
2. Right from the Beginning: Classical Athens and Beyond	37	(36)
3. Revolutions: The More Things Change	73	(34)
4. Coup d'Ecole: The War for Control of American Education	107	(32)
5. Teachers and Teaching in the Government Schools	139	(38)
6. The Performance Crisis in Public Schooling	177	(42)
7. Common School Problems: The World Tour	219	(40)
8. The Class Really Is Keener on the Other Side: The Case of Independent Schools	259	(34)
Part III. What Works	293	(74)
9. What Makes Schools Work?	293	(30)
10. Can Government Schooling Be Fixed?	323	(44)
Conclusion: Achieving Educational Excellence	367	(26)
Notes	393	(60)
Index	453	(18)
About the Author	471