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Title: The Worm in the Apple : How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education by Peter Brimelow ISBN: 0-06-009661-6 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (23 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Timely Analysis Of A Growing Crisis
Comment: Neither paralyzed by fear nor duped by union doubletalk, Peter Brimelow delivers an exceptionally crafted account of the public education crisis in America. Though "Worm In The Apple" does occasionally drift into topical sidelines, the overall flow of the book is quite good.
Its easy to appreciate Brimelow's scientific approach to the issue. He starts with a problem known to almost all: high cost, low performance public schools. Brimelow then identifies the root cause, the teacher unions, using abundant factual information and leaving little room for doubt.
Having made the connection, Brimelow shows that only mitigation of the teachers' unions power can end the education crisis. He then lists 24 changes, such as tenure elimination, that could turn the system around. Throughout the book, Brimelow's points are consistently backed by iron-clad proof that only a union robot could ignore.
"The Worm In The Apple" is an excellent piece of investigative reporting, and a "how-to" guide for addressing one of America's greatest challenges. Most of Brimelow's detractors are those who don't want to hear his message, or more often, don't want anybody else to hear his message. Such orchestrated detractions only serve to strengthen Brimelow's credibility.
Rating: 4
Summary: Brimelow Gets A B+
Comment: Peter Brimelow makes a valuable contribution to the education reform debate with his latest book 'The Worm In The Apple'. However, the subtitle of the book is somewhat misleading, because Brimelow focuses almost exclusively on the NEA, with scant attention given to the AFT, though he explains why in his preface. Also, as a libertarian, I wish Brimelow had challenged the justification for education being a government monopoly, though doing so might have diluted the central point of 'Worm'.
Since Brimelow admits that his own two children attend public schools, he is clearly not opposed to having public schools, so some of the comments in the 1 star reviews posted on Amazon are either dishonest or come from people who have not actually read the book.
Brimelow's central argument is that the NEA, like all unions, tries to monopolize the supply of labor in its particular industry, namely, education. But he adds that the teacher unions represent a monopoly on top of a monopoly because compulsory taxation and attendance laws pretty much guarantee that nearly 9 out of 10 children will attend public schools.
For all of the noise it makes about children, Brimelow argues that the NEA's primary concern is to maintain its hold over the public school system via agency shop and collective bargaining rules. This gives it access to an endless cashflow that it uses to curry political influence to stave off legislative reforms that could weaken its monopoly hold. This is seen in the NEA's opposition to merit pay, vouchers, tuition tax credits, charter schools, and even homeschooling, and in its support for such initiatives as smaller class sizes and bilingual ed, which results in the hiring of more teachers who then must pay union dues as well. Thus, whenever the NEA or any other teacher union comes out for or against a bill or initiative, their position is not based on what is best for children, but what is best for the union, regardless of how they try to cloak it. Brimelow also explains how much of this is not known to the public at large because most education reporters fail to realize that education is an industry that should be looked at as any other industry such as auto manufacturing or agriculture (which Brimelow attributes to their lack of knowledge in economics), or that some journalists who cover education, as Brimelow puts it, "go native".
At the end of 'Worm', Brimelow offers his wish list for education reforms. While Brimelow clearly supports vouchers and other measures that would enable parents to send their children to private schools, and includes them in his list, many of his proposals are aimed at public schools themselves. He favors abolishing collective bargaining and union shop laws, and allowing teachers the right to negotiate directly with their schools for wages and benefits, and conditions. After all, if a Jaime Escalante can teach 50 children calculus in a classroom, and demand more pay to do so, why shouldn't such a teacher have that right?
As with his previous book on immigration, 'Alien Nation', Brimelow employs his trademark witty and conversational writing style, filling 'Worm' with humorous descriptions and anecdotes, which makes it a good read regardless of whether you agree with him or not. Since I do agree with him for the most part, here's to hoping that 'Worm' helps to kickstart a much needed debate in this country.
Rating: 5
Summary: WHEW!
Comment: Brimelow begins his candid exposé on the National Education Association with a little history. The NEA, created in 1857, "was" a professional association concerned with "standards, ethics, and educational techniques" [preface]. Its original goal was improving America's education. So where did they get lost? The author tells us it was during the 1960s. The NEA morphed into a labor union, after removing school administrators from its membership and becoming competitively obsessed with the American Federation of Teachers. This was also when Kennedy issued an executive order allowing collective bargaining for federal employees, mind you, "in exchange for labor union support" [preface]. Because of these changes, Brimelow concludes that our educational system has been failing our children ever since.
Brimelow begins with NEA's 1999 annual meeting. It reads like a political train wreck, and is the perfect start in proving his point. Throughout the book, Brimelow shows the NEA's move from reading, writing, and arithmetic to such things as self-preservation, politics, and political correctness books and class atmosphere. Brimelow names names, places blame, dishes numbers, and exposes past and present union leaders. His eye-opening facts are riveting as he relays various accounts in trying to prove the absurdity of the union's control. For example, a Connecticut Teachers Association filed a grievance demanding pay for the additional two minutes a week the union claimed teachers worked that year; a Pennsylvania association filed a grievance against the school district because coffee and doughnuts were not provided during a training day; a New York "Deaf" school being forced to keep teachers who couldn't sign; and a Washington local union shot down a superintendent's need to alter school starting time for special education students because some teachers would have daycare problems. It goes on and on....
Brimelow doesn't dish the dirt only to leave readers wound up. The last chapter, "A Twenty-four Point Wish List," is well thought out and well written. Recommendations are aimed at improving education, protecting teachers, and parents' rights -- all minus an expensive, dominating union.
_The Worm in the Apple_ is the kind of book that demands reaction and hopefully causes change. Readers can expect to have a mental list of whom to share this book with before they're half way through it.
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Title: No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by Abigail Thernstrom, Stephan Thernstrom ISBN: 0743204468 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Teacher Unions : How They Sabotage Educational Reform and Why by Myron Lieberman ISBN: 189355421X Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by DIANE RAVITCH ISBN: 0375414827 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster by Peter Brimelow ISBN: 0060976918 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 19 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools by Martin L. Gross ISBN: 0060932600 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 05 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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