The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System

by Ron Paul

Overview

Twelve-term Texas Congressman, Presidential candidate, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Ron Paul returns with a highly provocative treatise about how we need to fundamentally change the way we think about America's broken education system in order to fix it.

Whether or not you have children, you know that education is vital to the prosperity and future of our society. Yet our current system simply doesn't work. Parents feel increasingly powerless, and nearly half of Americans give our schools a grade of "C". Now, in his new book, Ron Paul attacks the problem head-on and provides a focused solution that centers on strong support for home schooling and the application of free market principles to the American education system. Examining the history of education in this country, Dr. Paul identifies where we've gone wrong, what we can do about it, and how we can change the way we think about education in order to provide a brighter future for Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455577170
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	798,794
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ron Paul is a former twelve-term congressman from Texas and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He has devoted his political career to the defense of individual liberty, sound money, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Judge Andrew Napolitano once called him "the Thomas Jefferson of our day."

After serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s, Dr. Paul moved to Texas to begin a civilian medical practice, delivering over four thousand babies in his career as an obstetrician. He served in Congress from 1976 to 1984, and again from 1996 to 2012. He and Carol Paul, his wife of fifty-one years, have five children, eighteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Ron Paul, the New York Post once wrote, is a politician who "cannot be bought by special interests."

Table of Contents

Preface: My Experience in Public Schools vii

Introduction 1

Part I The Centrality of Education 9

1 Educating for Liberty 11

2 Educating for Leadership 29

3 Educating for Legacy 41

Part II A Strategy for Educational Reform 57

4 Family-Based Education 69

5 Competition in Education 83

6 Self-Instruction 96

7 Online Education 108

Part III The Ideal School 129

8 What Parents Want 135

9 What Students Need 147

10 What Colleges Want 163

11 The Ron Paul Curriculum 171

Conclusion 190

Some of My Favorite Websites 207

Editorial Reviews

2013-09-15
Self-styled libertarian and former presidential candidate Paul (Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect Our Freedom, 2011, etc.) outlines an educational curriculum that he believes offers parents the ability to restore their authority by pulling their children out of schools and colleges. The author envisions a curriculum that will enable a student "to be a productive member of a society that is fundamentally not political" and, at the same time, "will inoculate the student against the Keynesianism of the typical university" and the "standard textbook accounts of [the] New Deal." Paul argues that the Internet provides the means to create this new system. He claims that teaching methods based on lectures delivered to hundreds of students "became obsolete sometime around 1450." Taking college-level courses online is the answer to that obsolescence. Paul also argues that the Internet allows parents to re-establish their authority over the lessons taught to children in the K-12 age group. He strongly believes that the Internet will lower the cost of education, and parents will be able to afford to do on their own what previously required the involvement of "big government" and the teachers' union. Paul offers different examples of available curricula, pointing out that top-flight universities like Harvard and Yale are making classes available online, and others are following suit. He similarly reviews sources for K-12 programs. In promoting his agenda, Paul recommends that parents choose curriculum units from programs that have been "designed by somebody who shares your worldview." The author promotes self-improvement skills and touts the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, "one of the best programs of self-improvement anywhere," as a model. A politician gleefully anticipates the destruction of traditional education in the name of saving children.

Kirkus Reviews

In yet another book that purports to be able to solve the crisis of our failing public schools, politician Ron Paul focuses on home schooling and market forces, a euphemism for charter schools and competition within districts. Narrator Steve Coulter’s down-home earnestness works well; however, anyone looking for how to reform actual existing public schools may be disappointed. Coulter reads with an assured tone and an expressive voice, varying his approach to emphasize Paul’s points and succeeding in furthering his argument. However, Coulter has a propensity to overpronounce his “s” sounds, and there are times when he loses energy during passages that describe more than enlighten. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2013 - AudioFile