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Title: Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the Re-Constitution of American Schooling by Stephen Arons ISBN: 1-55849-078-7 Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Short road to Chaos: government schools (socialized schools)
Comment: Among the many topics, the author has written that government schools are destroying First Amendment rights and how to solve that problem. The author has called for a constitutional amendment to put a voucher program in the U.S. constitution. It is unfortunate that his proposal is shockingly wrongheaded. Better proposals have been made elsewhere to simply amend the First Amendment to read "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of education or religion...." That proposal would actually "separate school and state" as the First Amendment already "separates church and state." In comparison, the author's proposal lays the groundwork for a expanding the current government-school wars by including the provision that every child would receive government-tax-funding for his/her education. Although the author presented it simply as a possible solution, it is a solution that would destroy non-government schools, and massively expand socialism and government spending and control.

Rating: 4
Summary: Intriguing reassessment of the whole idea of public schools
Comment: I am doing research on the best way to change Americaneducation, and I read this book with great interest. Arons is aninsightful legal scholar who makes a forceful case that the way public schools are presently structured is inconsistent with democratic principles, if not unconstitutional. One of his central themes is that there is no way to make curricula value-neutral. As long as public schools are administered and regulated by the government, everyone's children, except those rich enough to escape, must submit to the Education Empire's agenda, no matter how much they are philosophically opposed. He asks, "By what right do secularists impose their world views on the religious' children, or vice versa?" He says there will continue to be heated conflicts and weakened communities as long as people are not free to choose their children's education. He says personal conscience, an essential for civilization, is only formed in community. Public schooling undermines conscience, as it cannot promote a universal value system without infringing on First Amendment Rights. Civil liberties lawyers have relied on the value-neutral fallacy in order to protect secularist hegemony, and Supreme Court justices have been erratically inconsistent on First Amendment rulings regarding the public schools. Arons also spells out how Goals 2000, passed in '96, establishes an official curriculum, enforces it with national tests, and though it is called "voluntary", it basically denies funding to those states and school districts who do not conform to centrally imposed mandates. He even compares Goals 2000 to a totalitarian system, and shows the similarities. It is quite disturbing to find out what is really going on in education in this country. I have come to agree with Arons that there should be a separation of school and state, and have joined this growing movement. The state should leave the formation of conscience to voluntary communities and parents in a plural society. Otherwise, we really do not have freedom of thought, or freedom of belief, because, as he points out, freedom of expression is worthless unless we are free to FORM different beliefs. But unlike Arons, I think the state should get out of BOTH administering schools and funding schools. Arons' idea of endorsing government funding of schools with the belief that it will not then control them is naive. The education liberation movement is growing, and will continue in the 21st century. This book should spark public debate on First Amendment principles, freedom of thought, formation of beliefs and conscience, and education in America. I also recommend Arons' first book, Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling.

Rating: 5
Summary: A powerful proposal for school reform.
Comment: I've been in education for over three decades and have always felt that our system needs to be rebuilt in major ways. Arons' book is the best combination of analysis and concrete proposals for reform I have ever read. He points out that school issues are always mired in political debate, and that whoever is ascendant at the moment holds sway in the "Education Empire." There is no room for individual students and families to take their own positions and to follow their own educational paths.

Arons recommends as a remedy an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would provide the same educational grant for every school-age child; each family would have the right to choose any school as the recipient of this grant. This amendment would also prohibit government at any level from establishing curriculum in any school. One provision I especially like is one that gives each kid 15 or older the right to choose her or his own school.

I work with teenagers who, in my opinion, have been abused by schools that fail utterly to recognize their students as uniquely talented people and instead pay attention only to ideology and institutional habits. Arons' proposed constitutional amendment would allow kids and their families to escape this abuse by choosing schools in which they feel comfortable and can learn happily and effectively.