Originally published 1993 | ||
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Similar Thomas Sowell books, History of education books | ||
Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas is a book by economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell (hardcover 1992, paperback 2003, Kindle Edition 2010) that details Sowell's assessment of the state of education in the United States (both K-12 education and higher education).
Contents
Criticism of educational "fads"
Sowell was critical of a number of educational programs and paradigms that became popular in the United States in the 1960s onward. Among the programs that he critiqued in his book and other writings were:
The very phrase "values clarification" is fundamentally dishonest. When parents tell their children not to steal or not to have sex, there is no ambiguity as to what they mean. Clarification is neither required nor attempted. Instead, values are downgraded to subjective preferences of individuals or blind traditions of "our society," and contrasted with alternative values of other individuals and other societies -- including, in some cases, the societies of various species of animals.[152] The "nonjudgmental" approach which pervades such exercises provides no principle of logic or morality by which to choose among the many alternatives presented -- except, implicitly, what "peers" or "experts" or "modern thinking" might prefer. "Clarification" is merely a process used to camouflage this process of undermining the child's existing values. (Page 65)
Sowell has elaborated on his arguments against values clarification on online articles.
Criticism of low skill level of school teachers
Sowell was critical of schools of education for training the future teachers in educational fads and having low overall standards, and was critical of states requiring people to have credentials from schools of education to take teaching jobs.
Criticism of ideological double standards at colleges
Sowell argued that higher educational institutions were full of double standards, including standards that excused violence and disruption when carried out in the name of politically correct goals, but were extremely harsh on small infractions that might be perceived to oppose politically correct goals.
Criticism of poor college teaching
Sowell argued that, unlike school teaching, the average quality of college teaching was better. He identified a few problems:
Reception
The book was reviewed by Patrick Groff in The Freeman, the journal of the Foundation for Economic Education. Groff was critical of Sowell for failing to be as radical in his proposals for reform as he was forthright in his criticism of the status quo.
Jon Sanders reviewed the book favorably for the Pope Center in August 1997.
The book was also reviewed by W. Brewster Gillett and others.