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Education: Assumptions Versus History: Collected Papers
In the papers collected in Education: Assumptions versus History, Dr. Thomas Sowell takes a hard look at the state of education in our schools and universities. His imperative is to test the assumptions underlying contemporary educational policies and innovations against the historical and contemporary evidence.
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First published November 5, 1985
About the author
Thomas Sowell
106 books5,750 followersThomas Sowell is an American economist, social philosopher, and political commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. He was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2002.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
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April 22, 2026
A COLLECTION OF HIS ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL TOPICS
Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is an economist, social theorist, political philosopher, columnist, and author (known particularly for his books on race and economics, such as ‘Ethnic America: A History,’ ‘The Economics and Politics of Race,’ etc.), who has long been associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “the central theme of the essays that follow is that we cannot educate on the basis of assumptions, but must test our most cherished beliefs against the facts of the past and the present. Heterogeneous as these are---ranging from essays to scholarly studies to testimony and interchanges with congressmen---their repeated theme is the extent to which the various ‘innovations’ and buzzwords of education have ignored evidence on the validity or---more often---lack of validity. These writings reprinted here span more than a decade, and some of the data go back several decades. History may have seemed ‘irrelevant’ to some in the heady days of educational [and social] reforms in the 1960s. But now the 1960s are history, and much of the 1970s is a record of which of these sweeping ideas would stand the test of time. Many would not---and we need to understand why. Because some who wrote of education two decades ago saw no need then to look back at history, it has become especially urgent that we now look back at what they did, and at what the results were.”
The first essay is on ‘Race and IQ’: “Extensive IQ data are available on white ethnic minorities around the time of World War I and in the 1920s… The various data sources all led to the same conclusion: The European immigrant IQs then were virtually identical to black IQs now. What is encouraging is that the low-IQ immigrant groups of the past now have IQs at or above the U.S. average… The Germans, the Irish, and other northern and western Europeans who had immigrated generations earlier than the southern and eastern Europeans had IQs around the American national average. The IQ differences between the older and the newer immigrant groups were … almost invariably attributed to genetic differences, rather than to the great difference in their number of years of exposure to American culture.
“My surveys found that the IQs of the later-arriving groups---Polish, Jewish, and Italian---rose over the decades until today they equal or exceed the national average… The average IQs of Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans have risen by 20 to 25 points from the time of the surveys conducted around World War I to the surveys conducted in the 1970s. This rise is greater than the current IQ difference---about 15 points---between blacks and whites… Professor Arthur Jensen claims that what is peculiar about low black performance on mental tests is that it is lowest on ABSTRACT material---that is, material not dependent on specific cultural information and therefore not explainable by ‘cultural deprivation.’ Powerful as this evidence might seem at first, a glance at history of other low-IQ groups … shows a very similar pattern of poor performance on the abstract portions of mental tests.” (Pg. 1-3)
He notes, “Black successes---whether measured by academic degrees or by career achievement---have not occurred randomly across the millions of black people scattered across the United States, as might be expected if individual natural ability were the major factor. On the contrary, a very few institutions in a few urban centers with a special history have produced a disproportionate share of black pioneers and high achievers.” (Pg. 9)
He reports, “Booker T. Washington … is no longer the only black high school in the city, and the neighborhood in which it is located is run down… the current academic performance of Booker T. Washington is far from that of an elite school. On a variety of tests, its students scored significantly below the … average of other Atlanta high schools… But the justifiable pride of Atlanteans in the school’s past makes it difficult to trace the process by which the present uninspiring situation came about. Certainly it is clear that … a black superintendent of schools and a black mayor of the city---are no substitute for the human resources that enabled earlier generations to overcome heavy handicaps.” (Pg. 12-13)
Turning to Frederick Douglass High School, he observes, “Douglass High School’s achievements were not a result of white input, at either the administrative or the teaching levels. Color differences within the black community were significant ... as well. Light-skinned alumni sometimes still carry bitter memories… Douglass’ days of glory are past… While the mean IQ… ranged from 93 to 105 for the 20 years before the 1954 decision, it fell immediately below 90 in 1955 and remained in the 80s … This reflected the exodus of more capable students to white high schools.” (Pg. 17)
He argues, “One of the tragedies in the wake of the [Arthur] Jensen controversy is that many schools … avoid giving IQ tests for fear of political repercussions, when in fact much useful information can be obtained from this imperfect instrument, once its limitations are understood.” (Pg 33)
He observes, “The so-called Moynihan Report in the 1960s demonstrated that black female performance on tests and grades significantly exceeded black male performance, explaining this by a supposed ‘matriarchal’ black culture going back to slavery. However, higher female performances have been common among low-IQ groups, now and in the past… Sex differences are especially pronounced among high-IQ members of low-IQ groups.” (Pg. 42)
He asserts, “With such variables as credentials, publications, and experience held constant, black [academics] equaled or surpassed whites in 1973---but they also equaled or surpassed whites with fields held constant in 1970, before affirmative action quotas. Without these variables held constant, the overall black-white differential was $62 per year in 1970 and $640 in 1973… it is perhaps best to say that there were negligible overall differences among black and white academics in both years---that affirmative action has achieved nothing discernible in this regard.” (Pg. 89)
He states, “One of the misrepresentations by opponents of the tuition tax rebate is that it would cost billions of dollars. They are talking about Treasury disbursements, which may be politically important. What is ECONOMICALLY important is that a shift of students to lower-cost private schools can SAVE billions of dollars for society as a whole.” (Pg. 104)
He points out, “Poor people benefit very little from scholarships because most scholarships are too small to be of any practical use to anyone without considerable additional money of his own. Larger scholarships would enable people with lower incomes to go to college, but they would mean fewer scholarships available… we should recognize the present educational situation for what it is. Rich people go to college at their own expense, middle-class people go with public subsidies, and most others do not go at all.” (Pg. 111)
He contends, “The argument that black faculty ‘relate’ better to black students is not one readily testable by scientific methods. It is clear, impressionistically, that in some cases this is true, but a generalization of this sort requires much more empirical evidence or much more logical analysis than a general consonance with currently popular racial beliefs. And it is not clear what the intellectual content or consequences of ‘relating’ may be, where it does in fact occur.” (Pg. 138)
He observes, “Another point on which black intellectuals of widely differing views agree is that education is highly respected in the black community. Historically, education has been the main escape route for those black Americans who have advanced socially and economically. Many understand this who understand neither the educational superstructure not intellectual prerequisites or traditions. The repudiation of educational and/or intellectual standards by some black intellectuals is more in keeping with the attitudes of some middle-class whites than with the views of the black population in whose name this repudiation is often made.” (Pg. 149)
He states in an interview, “I’ve studied some black schools that have had… much better results. I don’t find them innovative. I find them just doing things that other schools that get good results also do with their other students. I’m not willing to say if there’s… a serious problem, that we must do something sort of unprecedented… whether that something would fall under the category of innovative is another matter entirely.” (Pg. 165)
He insists, “There is simply no point talking nonsense about the quality of Negro colleges. None of them ranks with a decent state university, and it is a farce to talk of them in the same breath with any of the schools we normally think of as the leading academic institutions. No pious phrases … about ‘high academic standards’ at some Negro colleges or unctuous characterizations of ‘able and heroic teachers and administrators’ by the United Negro College Fund can change the brutal facts.” (Pg. 172-173)
As with all of Sowell’s books, some love them, and some hate them.
Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is an economist, social theorist, political philosopher, columnist, and author (known particularly for his books on race and economics, such as ‘Ethnic America: A History,’ ‘The Economics and Politics of Race,’ etc.), who has long been associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “the central theme of the essays that follow is that we cannot educate on the basis of assumptions, but must test our most cherished beliefs against the facts of the past and the present. Heterogeneous as these are---ranging from essays to scholarly studies to testimony and interchanges with congressmen---their repeated theme is the extent to which the various ‘innovations’ and buzzwords of education have ignored evidence on the validity or---more often---lack of validity. These writings reprinted here span more than a decade, and some of the data go back several decades. History may have seemed ‘irrelevant’ to some in the heady days of educational [and social] reforms in the 1960s. But now the 1960s are history, and much of the 1970s is a record of which of these sweeping ideas would stand the test of time. Many would not---and we need to understand why. Because some who wrote of education two decades ago saw no need then to look back at history, it has become especially urgent that we now look back at what they did, and at what the results were.”
The first essay is on ‘Race and IQ’: “Extensive IQ data are available on white ethnic minorities around the time of World War I and in the 1920s… The various data sources all led to the same conclusion: The European immigrant IQs then were virtually identical to black IQs now. What is encouraging is that the low-IQ immigrant groups of the past now have IQs at or above the U.S. average… The Germans, the Irish, and other northern and western Europeans who had immigrated generations earlier than the southern and eastern Europeans had IQs around the American national average. The IQ differences between the older and the newer immigrant groups were … almost invariably attributed to genetic differences, rather than to the great difference in their number of years of exposure to American culture.
“My surveys found that the IQs of the later-arriving groups---Polish, Jewish, and Italian---rose over the decades until today they equal or exceed the national average… The average IQs of Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans have risen by 20 to 25 points from the time of the surveys conducted around World War I to the surveys conducted in the 1970s. This rise is greater than the current IQ difference---about 15 points---between blacks and whites… Professor Arthur Jensen claims that what is peculiar about low black performance on mental tests is that it is lowest on ABSTRACT material---that is, material not dependent on specific cultural information and therefore not explainable by ‘cultural deprivation.’ Powerful as this evidence might seem at first, a glance at history of other low-IQ groups … shows a very similar pattern of poor performance on the abstract portions of mental tests.” (Pg. 1-3)
He notes, “Black successes---whether measured by academic degrees or by career achievement---have not occurred randomly across the millions of black people scattered across the United States, as might be expected if individual natural ability were the major factor. On the contrary, a very few institutions in a few urban centers with a special history have produced a disproportionate share of black pioneers and high achievers.” (Pg. 9)
He reports, “Booker T. Washington … is no longer the only black high school in the city, and the neighborhood in which it is located is run down… the current academic performance of Booker T. Washington is far from that of an elite school. On a variety of tests, its students scored significantly below the … average of other Atlanta high schools… But the justifiable pride of Atlanteans in the school’s past makes it difficult to trace the process by which the present uninspiring situation came about. Certainly it is clear that … a black superintendent of schools and a black mayor of the city---are no substitute for the human resources that enabled earlier generations to overcome heavy handicaps.” (Pg. 12-13)
Turning to Frederick Douglass High School, he observes, “Douglass High School’s achievements were not a result of white input, at either the administrative or the teaching levels. Color differences within the black community were significant ... as well. Light-skinned alumni sometimes still carry bitter memories… Douglass’ days of glory are past… While the mean IQ… ranged from 93 to 105 for the 20 years before the 1954 decision, it fell immediately below 90 in 1955 and remained in the 80s … This reflected the exodus of more capable students to white high schools.” (Pg. 17)
He argues, “One of the tragedies in the wake of the [Arthur] Jensen controversy is that many schools … avoid giving IQ tests for fear of political repercussions, when in fact much useful information can be obtained from this imperfect instrument, once its limitations are understood.” (Pg 33)
He observes, “The so-called Moynihan Report in the 1960s demonstrated that black female performance on tests and grades significantly exceeded black male performance, explaining this by a supposed ‘matriarchal’ black culture going back to slavery. However, higher female performances have been common among low-IQ groups, now and in the past… Sex differences are especially pronounced among high-IQ members of low-IQ groups.” (Pg. 42)
He asserts, “With such variables as credentials, publications, and experience held constant, black [academics] equaled or surpassed whites in 1973---but they also equaled or surpassed whites with fields held constant in 1970, before affirmative action quotas. Without these variables held constant, the overall black-white differential was $62 per year in 1970 and $640 in 1973… it is perhaps best to say that there were negligible overall differences among black and white academics in both years---that affirmative action has achieved nothing discernible in this regard.” (Pg. 89)
He states, “One of the misrepresentations by opponents of the tuition tax rebate is that it would cost billions of dollars. They are talking about Treasury disbursements, which may be politically important. What is ECONOMICALLY important is that a shift of students to lower-cost private schools can SAVE billions of dollars for society as a whole.” (Pg. 104)
He points out, “Poor people benefit very little from scholarships because most scholarships are too small to be of any practical use to anyone without considerable additional money of his own. Larger scholarships would enable people with lower incomes to go to college, but they would mean fewer scholarships available… we should recognize the present educational situation for what it is. Rich people go to college at their own expense, middle-class people go with public subsidies, and most others do not go at all.” (Pg. 111)
He contends, “The argument that black faculty ‘relate’ better to black students is not one readily testable by scientific methods. It is clear, impressionistically, that in some cases this is true, but a generalization of this sort requires much more empirical evidence or much more logical analysis than a general consonance with currently popular racial beliefs. And it is not clear what the intellectual content or consequences of ‘relating’ may be, where it does in fact occur.” (Pg. 138)
He observes, “Another point on which black intellectuals of widely differing views agree is that education is highly respected in the black community. Historically, education has been the main escape route for those black Americans who have advanced socially and economically. Many understand this who understand neither the educational superstructure not intellectual prerequisites or traditions. The repudiation of educational and/or intellectual standards by some black intellectuals is more in keeping with the attitudes of some middle-class whites than with the views of the black population in whose name this repudiation is often made.” (Pg. 149)
He states in an interview, “I’ve studied some black schools that have had… much better results. I don’t find them innovative. I find them just doing things that other schools that get good results also do with their other students. I’m not willing to say if there’s… a serious problem, that we must do something sort of unprecedented… whether that something would fall under the category of innovative is another matter entirely.” (Pg. 165)
He insists, “There is simply no point talking nonsense about the quality of Negro colleges. None of them ranks with a decent state university, and it is a farce to talk of them in the same breath with any of the schools we normally think of as the leading academic institutions. No pious phrases … about ‘high academic standards’ at some Negro colleges or unctuous characterizations of ‘able and heroic teachers and administrators’ by the United Negro College Fund can change the brutal facts.” (Pg. 172-173)
As with all of Sowell’s books, some love them, and some hate them.
July 31, 2024
Education in colors
Reading Thomas Howell is as much an experience as an education. The thrust of the material in this book is essentially a perspective of the evolution of Blacks in America's institutes of learning at all levels. I personally wasn't happy with his overlong focus on comparative IQ levels when the testing of such proved detrimental to those investing more time in thought than to the authority of the stopwatch. But Sowell is as much a festival for the heart as for the mind.
Reading Thomas Howell is as much an experience as an education. The thrust of the material in this book is essentially a perspective of the evolution of Blacks in America's institutes of learning at all levels. I personally wasn't happy with his overlong focus on comparative IQ levels when the testing of such proved detrimental to those investing more time in thought than to the authority of the stopwatch. But Sowell is as much a festival for the heart as for the mind.
March 6, 2020
Superior scholarship, for those interested in evidence and reason
Thomas Sowell is America’s senior scholar on economics, race, and education. His work must never be countered directly because it cannot be. If your goal is to be thoughtful about these topics, then understanding Sowell is required.
Thomas Sowell is America’s senior scholar on economics, race, and education. His work must never be countered directly because it cannot be. If your goal is to be thoughtful about these topics, then understanding Sowell is required.
January 13, 2026
The earlier chapters are much more interesting. Later ones on postsecondary education far less - particularly in terms on practicality. The last couple almost read now like extended blog posts/reviews where he just wanted to get down his thoughts on certain writers or topics/books.
July 23, 2018
This is one of my favorite writers!! Very informative and VERY relevant today! So many people act as if poor people, of ALL races, can't learn... WRONG!!
June 6, 2020
Collection of papers. Not for the PC crowd.
July 5, 2021
Very clear outline of the decay of public education in the USA.
June 30, 2016
“Education: Assumptions Versus History” by Thomas Sowell consists of a collection of various writings by Sowell and a transcript of his 1977 congressional testimony. As a result, this is not a unified book where Sowell can relate the various chapters and trace them back to a general thesis. However, it is a good look into Sowell’s opinions about and approach to education over a couple decades. I believe that he is somebody whose opinions we need to value when debating education policy in this country.
Sowell generally believes that American education is deeply flawed. In a nutshell, he believes that our system has replaced what works with what sounds good. Education in the United States is especially prone to fads and “solutions” which are not borne out by any more evidence than that they simply sound plausible. He often targets universities because he has been in the university environment for the majority of his life, so he is most familiar with the issues on college campuses. I always enjoy his analysis of affirmative action; he eloquently describes the mismatching of minority students and institutions when robust affirmative action policies are in place. This mismatching sets up minority students to fail, and they often rebel against the academic standards that they cannot meet, pushing for programs and classes that do not have those same standards. Students that would be perfectly qualified for a good state school are instead sent to an Ivy League school where they do not come close to meeting usual admission standards. When these students eventually rebel against the academic standards that they cannot meet at institutions for which they are not suited, racial tensions are stoked and harmful stereotypes are reinforced. Sowell has many complaints about post-secondary education in the United States, but his arguments against affirmative action may be the most memorable.
Anything by Thomas Sowell is worth reading, as anyone who has read my other reviews would likely know is my opinion. Because he has spent so much of his life in academia, he knows what works and what does not. He understands incentives and how our system incentivizes so many harmful policies. His congressional testimony and book reviews contained at the end of the book are changes of pace, as they allow the reader to understand his thoughts in a slightly different setting, whether it is answering someone else’s questions or analyzing someone else’s works.
Sowell generally believes that American education is deeply flawed. In a nutshell, he believes that our system has replaced what works with what sounds good. Education in the United States is especially prone to fads and “solutions” which are not borne out by any more evidence than that they simply sound plausible. He often targets universities because he has been in the university environment for the majority of his life, so he is most familiar with the issues on college campuses. I always enjoy his analysis of affirmative action; he eloquently describes the mismatching of minority students and institutions when robust affirmative action policies are in place. This mismatching sets up minority students to fail, and they often rebel against the academic standards that they cannot meet, pushing for programs and classes that do not have those same standards. Students that would be perfectly qualified for a good state school are instead sent to an Ivy League school where they do not come close to meeting usual admission standards. When these students eventually rebel against the academic standards that they cannot meet at institutions for which they are not suited, racial tensions are stoked and harmful stereotypes are reinforced. Sowell has many complaints about post-secondary education in the United States, but his arguments against affirmative action may be the most memorable.
Anything by Thomas Sowell is worth reading, as anyone who has read my other reviews would likely know is my opinion. Because he has spent so much of his life in academia, he knows what works and what does not. He understands incentives and how our system incentivizes so many harmful policies. His congressional testimony and book reviews contained at the end of the book are changes of pace, as they allow the reader to understand his thoughts in a slightly different setting, whether it is answering someone else’s questions or analyzing someone else’s works.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews