Charter Schools and Their Enemies

by Thomas Sowell

Winner of the 2021 Hayek Book Prize

A leading conservative intellectual defends charter schools against the teachers' unions, politicians, and liberal educators who threaten to dismantle their success.
  The black-white educational achievement gap -- so much discussed for so many years -- has already been closed by black students attending New York City's charter schools. This might be expected to be welcome news. But it has been very unwelcome news in traditional public schools whose students are transferring to charter schools. A backlash against charter schools has been led by teachers unions, politicians and others -- not only in New York but across the country. If those attacks succeed, the biggest losers will be minority youngsters for whom a quality education is their biggest chance for a better life.

Genres: Education, Politics, Nonfiction, Economics, History, Audiobook, Race

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2020

About the author

Thomas 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.

Reviews

[Amora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific defense of charter schools. Charter schools are often wrongly accused of denying people with disabilities admissions and exacerbating the racial achievement gap when they do neither. While this is Sowell’s shortest book yet, it is still packed with information. Even with all the regulations on charter schools, they have proven themselves to be incredibly effective in improving academic performance.

Corey DeAngelis from the Cato Institute is also working on a book on charter schools and school choice. I recommend reading that as well if you’re interested in learning more.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A devastating exploration of the incredible successes of charter schools, especially in NY, and those who oppose them. Sowell looks at empirical data amongst the students of charters and traditional public schools, in the same social classes, often attending schools in the same building, and the runaway success of the kids in the charter schools.

Such data would mean bipartisan support of such schools, right? Wrong. Sowell spends the majority of the second half of the book chronicling the maddening opposition charter schools face, primarily by politicians, teachers unions, and special interests.

The animating principle from which our education policy should be governed, argues Sowell, should be: what is best for children? Sadly this is not true, and the future of charters—a legitimate means of accomplishing racial equity and opportunity for all children regardless of race or class—remains an open question.

It is my hope that Sowell’s book will help bring these issues to a broader public and our kids futures will be prioritized over bureaucratic infighting.

[Mariellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read to understand how charter schools impact our school systems. Dr. Sowell meticulously lays out evidence about the educational success of charter schools and their critics who seek to destroy them.

[Sarah Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sowell's glorification of charters is inaccurate and unhelpful. It is the conservative equivalent of Diane Ravich's Reign of Error, which Sowell quotes often throughout the book. Both authors are driven by philosophical positions, seeking out data points and anecdotes that serve their intended ends rather than taking a comprehensive look at the evidence before rendering a judgment.

Sowell's case for charters is built primarily on a review of test results for 5 charter school networks in New York City. He claims that by looking at charters operating in the same building as traditional public schools, he is able to make an "apples to apples" comparison between students of similar backgrounds who are all drawn from the surrounding neighborhood. As many critics have cited, this methodology is flawed and - frankly - embarrassing coming from such a renowned economist. Even if Sowell had chosen a collection of charter schools at random and compared their outcomes to those of the traditional public schools operating in the same building, the comparison would not be a fair one, given differences in enrollment, disciplinary, and special education practices between the charters and traditional schools. (Indeed, Sowell's self-identified nemesis, Diane Ravich provides a comprehensive overview of these differences in Reign of Error, as have many other charter critics and advocates alike.) However, by limiting his selection to charter networks with more than 5 schools, he is cherry picking some of the best charters - those who have had the academic outcomes, parent demand, and political capital that have enabled them to expand to multiple sites. Not only that, but he is comparing them to a collection of severely under-enrolled District schools with whom these high-performing charters are co-located. Charter schools are not located in buildings with high performing district schools that have wait lists themselves. Rather, they are co-located with district schools that have weak academic performance and parent demand and - as a result - are half empty.

Thus, Sowell is comparing some of the strongest charters to a collection of weak district schools and attempting to make a sweeping defense of all charters, based on these few. This argument is - at best - flawed and - at worst - a Machiavellian effort to build a strong case for charters in the face of a growing national backlash.

For readers who are genuinely interested in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of charters as well as policies that have the potential to raise the bar for all charters (as opposed to simply glorifying a select few), I recommend Chester Finn's Charter Schools at the Crossroads. Finn was the Assistant Secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush and is undeniably pro-charter. While his work is far less inflammatory than both Sowell's and Ravitch's diatribes against unions and charters, respectively, it provides a comprehensive and evidence-based review of the good, bad, and ugly of charters, while putting forth a policy agenda for how to strengthen the good and eliminate the ugly. This is what all charter advocates today should be fighting for.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story begins in the 1970s. Thomas Sowell started researching academic excellence in all black schools. He thought the evidence would play an important role in education reform. Instead, his narrative—competing as it did with more popular theories about education policy—went mostly ignored.
In a sense, this is his answer years later. He's coming back and hitting hard with the data.
And does he ever come with the data. More than half the page count in this book comes from the Appendix and Notes. He meticulously lists information about schools, racial and economic makeup of students, test scores, etc.
In his analysis, he almost always quotes the critics of charter schools directly, allowing them to speak for themselves instead of going through him. He cites scores of newspaper articles to back up the stories he tells about the ways different cities treat charter schools. He cites within the book and then adds more citations at the back!
You can say much about this book (in my opinion, much good!) but what you can't call it is lacking grounding in the facts. The closest comparison I could think of was a law review article, where it isn't unusual to find a citation for every sentence.
But unlike a law review article, this book is remarkably readable. It is short. It gets straight to the point. The block quotes are not tedious but actually flow remarkably well. You can pick this up already seeped in the debate about charter schools, or as someone new to the argument.
And of course, it is Thomas Sowell so it is just a delight to read.
Definitely recommend this one.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and many pages are charting stats in comparison of apples to apples.

Beyond my ability to relay the huge argument that charter schools are positive and not negative entities.

Tom Sowell did this book the year he turned 90. A treasured genius not a bit diminished or huddling for safety.

This made me understand too how category definition and specific dependable features can wholly distort supposedly valid stats and data.

[Maggie McKneely · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this book with the vague notion that charter schools offer more opportunities for low-income students, and that the educational establishment has a serious beef with those schools. I came out of it with 130 pages of a concise, readable, and prescient argument and another 150 pages worth of appendix (lest anyone think Sowell doesn’t do his research.) Worth the read for anyone involved in education.

[Jim Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short book, released the day after Tom's 90th birthday. I sincerely hope this is not the last we will see from him.

The ideas contained within resonate with me but I am fairly uneducated on this topic. I have seen studies that show nationally charter schools do not significantly differ on performance from their public counterparts. Tom correctly identifies that national statistics cannot be used. Charter schools are disproportionally located in low socioeconomic areas. This would be comparing apples to oranges. Actually, the lack of significant difference nationally is a testament to the effectiveness of charter schools.

Instead, the author turns to New York City which has a specific set of comparable data. There are 5 charter school networks that share facilities with public schools in 5 or more locations (KIPP, Success Academy, Explore Schools, Uncommon Schools, and Achievement First Networks). These students are learning in the same facilities and have very similar demographics (race, income). The contrast is stark. Charter schools in New York city easily outperform public institutions housed in the same building. This, to me, is common sense but Tom does a great job articulating the reasons for this. Public institutions have compulsory enrollment and therefore no real reason to excel. Charter schools' very existence relies on their ability to excel in teaching students. I should mention that the students are selected by lottery, not achievement. The Success Academy network, in particular, outpaces the very best public institutions New York State has to offer.

Unsurprisingly, unionized public institutions view this as an existential threat. Unions and their allies prevent charter schools from purchasing unused district buildings, sometimes going as far as destroying the property. Unions attack the credentials of the teachers used by charter schools but what better credential is there than actual student achievement? Therein lies the major difference between charter schools and public schools. Public school teachers have fancy degrees that are generally irrelevant to the subject at hand and are next to impossible to fire. New York city employed hundreds of deadbeat teachers because pursuing termination is such a lofty financial and time commitment. Charter schools are easily able to replace teachers that are not performing.

This is a topic I would like to learn more about. I plan on reading one of Diane Ravitch's anti-charter school books for the sake of covering all my bases. Tom quotes Diane throughout the book while making his arguments.

[Matt Berkowitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a moderately enjoyable, but disappointingly unpersuasive read. Sowell writes with his usual incisive clarity and makes it clear where he stands on the issue of charter schools: that they often perform better than public schools in terms of academic outcomes.

Sowell spends chapter 2 rather drily reporting figures that compare student proficiency scores from charter schools vs public schools. He appears to assume that there’s something about charter schools’ academic / teaching program that is superior to public schools, such that the higher proficiency scores he reports are necessarily a result of this assumed program superiority. However, he never actually spells out what actually (or allegedly) is superior about charter schools. Perhaps if we knew what this was, it would undermine the case for charter schools, and instead lend support to appropriate these allegedly superior methods for public schools or the more accountable “magnet” schools (curiously ignored by Sowell in this book).

The most glaring weakness of Sowell’s thesis, in my opinion, is that he expends almost no effort addressing common arguments and compelling evidence *against* the superiority of charter schools, namely:

Students in charter schools are not representative of the wider population. Though applicants to charter schools are admitted via lottery (which is thus used by Sowell to justify the assumption of a representative sample), only the most motivated students apply (an argument posited by Diane Ravitch). Thus, their overperformance constitutes a selection effect; that is, those who attend charter schools are not a representative sample of students.

To be fair, Sowell doesn’t entirely ignore the selection effect objection, but he doesn’t deal with the argument effectively at all.

On page 99, Sowell gets closest to dealing with the representativeness issue:

“While those parents who enter their children’s names in the lotteries for admission to charter schools may well be more motivated to promote their children’s education, and to cooperate with schools in doing so, those who win in these lotteries are greatly outnumbered by those who do not win—as in other lotteries in general.”

He goes on to ask: “When charter schools take a fraction of the children from motivated families, why does that prevent the traditional public schools from comparably educating the remaining majority of children from those motivated families?”

He cites a WSJ survey that students who did not win the lotteries did worse than students who won. This seems like prima facie good evidence in favour of his thesis. This seems like the closest apples-to-apples comparison that Sowell offers. However, there are problems with this line of argument. As Glenn Sacks notes in an excellent critical review of the book,

“Students who win the charter lottery and are thus among the students at the charter, who are more advanced, will progress quicker than similar students who are placed back in the public school, who will be among less advanced students. The group accepted to the charter will face greater expectations, and the ones who can hack it will do better on standardized tests and in other areas. The ones accepted to the charter who can’t handle the greater academic rigor will be pushed out or drop out, and thus their lesser academic performance will not lower the charters’ test scores and other performance indices.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...
In other words, there's a survivorship bias.

Next, on p. 101, Sowell acknowledges that “There have been studies that reached opposite conclusions as to whether charter schools get better test scores than traditional public schools”. But he doesn’t even attempt to explain what the source of the discrepant results may be. How can the reader know whether the studies Sowell prefers are superior and, on balance, lead to the conclusion that charter schools produce better outcomes?

For example, a Stanford report found that “a decent fraction of charter schools, 17 percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students. Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.” https://credo.stanford.edu/sites/g/fi... (p. 7)

Or another study that pointed out that “[w]hile charter schools are required by law to accept any student who applies, in reality they exercise recruitment, admission, and expulsion policies that often screen out the students who would be the neediest and most expensive to serve—who then turn to district schools.”
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/w...

If these findings are bogus, it behooves a responsible author to tell his audience why.

Instead of dealing with these objections, Sowell instead spends much of the book lamenting the hostility toward charter schools—which range from politicians who harbour a predetermined antipathy to charter schools, as well as financial disincentives. Perhaps this hostility would be more understandable to him if he seriously grappled with the cogent criticisms of charter schools. But because Sowell doesn’t convincingly make the case that charter schools tend to produce superior outcomes, his commentary that focuses on understanding the allegedly misplaced aversion to charter schools is mostly unconvincing.

Overall, this is just an exercise in extreme cherry-picking, bordering on intellectual dishonesty, given the selective use of evidence, the absence of effectively dealing with convincing counterarguments (or ignoring them entirely), and a seeming incredulity about the reasons why some studies appear to produce disparities in outcomes. For an author who has made a career pointing out (usually effectively) the many reasons why groups can differ in outcomes, Sowell misses the mark in this subpar work.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sowell on top form. He lays out the many reasons why state-run schools are usually pretty terrible, and how the Charter school movement proves just how bad other schools are. He is writing about the US system but so much is relevant to the UK. I totally agreed with his argument that the unions essentially exist to protect bad teachers rather than to educate children. More broadly, this book demonstrates that anything run by a leftist establishment will almost definitely result in disaster.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diane Ravitch would like us to believe that charter schools are bad, citing studies that show nationwide, students from public schools outperform those from charter schools. Case closed, right?

Well, here Sowell shows that this statistic is true only if you lump schools together because it ends up comparing inner city charter schools with suburban white public schools. When public schools with poor minority children are compared with charter schools with a similar student body the results clearly demonstrate the substantial benefits of charter schools. I think the most convincing studies are those comparing students that applied for charter schools and were admitted, with those who applied but lost the lottery. These groups are equal with regard to socioeconomic background, motivation, and family involvement. The kids that were lucky enough to get into the charter schools were much more likely to be proficient in English and math. At every grade level. Meanwhile the losers of the lottery continue to suffer.

Ravitch understands that charter schools indeed are bad — bad for teachers unions and their monopolistic control over public education. It’s evident that they care about themselves over the actual education of children, and Sowell details the ways that they continue to obstruct and sabotage charter schools in order to preserve their own power. This is a significant racial justice issue, but many prefer to support the government unions instead of allowing minority families to choose a path to a better education.

[Peter Tillman]

Amity Shales' comments at the WSJ's Best Reads of 2021 issue:
"Unusually satisfying is this year’s Hayek Prize winner, Thomas Sowell’s “Charter Schools and Their Enemies.” Don’t miss Mr. Sowell’s account of the execution—no other term will do—of the soul of the District of Columbia’s Dunbar High School by social justice warriors armed with civil-rights laws."

Sowell always writes well. He just turned 95! (2025) Priority read, and it's short.

[Josiah Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meticulously well researched while staying oh-so interesting in the best and worst ways. Definitely a book I think everyone should read who has any concern for the education of kids in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods where a solid education may be their best hope for a ticket out of poverty. Another exceptional study by the great Dr. Sowell (still just as sharp at 90 years-old.)

[Tyler Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

You won’t read anything like this in education school. Clear, concise and, above all, removed from the fickle nature of data manipulation — something you often see at play within the mainstream narrative surrounding the nature of charter schools. Sowell gracefully removes himself from the political bias that often plagues the discussion around charter schools and provides himself with a rigorous set of parameters within which charter schooling data can be accurately analyzed. The criteria in comparing public school students with charter school students accounts necessarily for similar ethnic make-up, as well as class level and a comparative geographical locale (literally the same building).

This isn’t a New York Times or Fox News article, twisting facts to suit an agenda one way or another. It’s as academic and well-researched a document on charter schools as we will probably ever get. My copy has a prolonged bibliography that goes (and goes, and goes) for over 20 pages, hundreds of resources examined, table upon table of cold, hard, factual data working toward the truth. Because of this, there are so many myths dispelled in shocking fashion — talking points you’ll often hear in educational circles. I’ve listed three below that fascinated me:

1. “Charter schools steal the better students away from public schools.” No. Charter schools use a lottery system. Like all lottery systems, a few people win and many people lose. Charter schools simply do what they can with the groups of students that end up attending.

2. “Charter schools use stricter means of discipline and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.” No. All the hard data sorted through here suggests that boys attending stricter charter schools are less likely to be incarcerated in the future and the attending girls tend to have lower rates of teenage pregnancy. In fact, in the most successful charter schools, the racial gap is actually closed. Asian and white students comprise a majority population in traditional public schools across the nation, while black and hispanic students are the majority in charter schools. The statistics show that the most successful charter schools disproportionately elevate minority communities with regard to education when compared to the broken public school system. Those who fight against charter schooling are, in effect, actively fighting to *widen* the racial gap.

3. “Charter schools funnel money away from public schools.” No. Per pupil expenditure is statistically lower in charter schools than public schools. When stacked against population, this proves that charter schools do not funnel funding away from public schools. Also, believe it or not, funding does not always correlate directly with academic success. Sometimes, the very best teachers simply need a chalkboard, a book, and paper. There are just as many examples of exuberant, well-resourced, and well-funded schools failing educationally as there are examples of underfunded schools doing precisely the same thing. Proper funding is necessary, obviously, but shouldn’t be used as a crutch or an excuse for malfunctioning systems of public schooling.

I think the most significant point that Sowell makes in this book is that schools have become a battleground for political biases and financial interests. Teachers unions, monopolies of educational bureaucracies, captive audiences for indoctrinators — school, very simply, is a place for educating children, not for the vested interests of adults. As he states, “The stakes are huge, not only for children whose education can be their one clear chance for a better life, but also for a whole society that needs productive members, fulfilling themselves while contributing their talents to the progress of the community at large. Students who emerge from their education with a mastery of mathematics, the English language and other fundamentals are ready to be those kinds of people, regardless of what color or class they come from. No narrow vested interests of adults, whether financial, political or ideological, should be allowed to block that.”

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly statistics and data, but toward the end he finally provided a little commentary and some observations. Short, and I wanted more cultural commentary.

[Hong Zhou · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a teacher. I can’t say I agree with everything Dr.Sowell claims in this book, but do agree with the core concepts that 1, ALL (especially low SES) parents and students should have options choosing where to go school, and 2, that schools should prioritize the students’ learning and growth way above everything else (if there is anything else to be prioritized). Dr. Sowell makes solid and strong arguments in this book, with concrete empirical evidence. I’m telling my colleagues about this book and expecting long and in-depth discussions after they read it.

[Brett Jeter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book solidified my view that charter schools are a great way to improve education among the most disadvantaged in America. The statistics alone are compelling but Sowell also lays out a damning indictment of the key players in the counter arguments to charter schools. With the evidence being obvious, these key players are contributing to injustice on the most vulnerable among us. It frankly made me angry. I hope this book is widely read and it contributes to more charter schools being opened across the US for the ALMOST 1 MILLION kids on waiting lists for these schools.

[The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget virtue signalling; that never helped anyone — except politicians looking for votes. The ideas in this book, on the other hand, could actually help close the educational achievement gaps between blacks, Hispanics, whites, and Asians, respectively, in the USA and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the enemies of school choice are many...

Although this book was released one day after the author's 90th birthday, there's no lack fight, insight, and brilliance in Thomas Sowell, the world's most important intellectual. Read it if you care beyond merely appearing to care.

[Styron Powers · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have absorbed. I have red and blue ink all over this book and probably 30 + tabs to mark key pages. Thomas Sowell argues with facts and logic. He presents the facts to demonstrate we are causing great harm to the poor and minority children by fighting charter schools. Without education people will not climb out of poverty and utilize their own talents to lift themselves up. Majority of US Teacher’s unions fight charter schools for one reason. The charter schools are competition and kicking their ass!

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read into day's environment.

[Enrico Bertini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another classic from Sowell. The style is what you always get from him: straight to the point and narrative based on facts and logic. The book starts very strong with an explanation of why it is important to compare the right sets of students, that is, apples with apples and pears with pears. This is followed by a thorough comparison of students performance in public schools versus charter schools and shows that charter schools most often outperform public schools. The rest of the book is about who the enemies of charter schools are and what their arguments and motives are. Finally, Sowell explains why charter schools are important and what are the big dangers if they end up being defeated by their enemies. I learned a lot from this book. It made me sad that so much politics is behind making decisions about schools; a lot of it full of unreasonable rhetoric.

[. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не е 5 звезди, 4.5 е книгата. Но беше доста интересна. Кратичка 4 ч. Ще напиша ревю по-късно.
Някои глави ше ги преслушам пак.

[Julio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, but sad that it is so short.

There are just as many pages with data as there are pages with text. It is good for those who like such things, but I am sure that charts and data are not for everyone.

Still, Sowell makes a compelling case for the continued expansion of charter schools. Sowell was also kind enough to reveal some of his methodology with respect to comparing 'truly comparable groups'.

Such methodology to try and compare truly comparable populations includes:
1) A similar ethnic composition of student in a particular charter school being compared to a particular traditional public schools serving the same local community.
2) Students in both schools are taught in the very same buildings, thus reducing whatever effect differences in particular buildings, or in the neighborhoods around those buildings might be. This also reduces the likely range of dispersion in the locations of the homes from which students come, as well as the likely dispersion of their socioeconomic backgrounds.
3) The charter school and traditional public school have one or more classes at the same grade level in the same building, so that students in these particular classes can be compared in their results when taking the same tests.

Another area in which Sowell deserves some praise is that although he shows a clear bias in this book, he does not proclaim charter schools to be anything resembling a panacea or a 'cure-all'. He presents data that is, at times, not flattering to the charter schools he is defending. On net balance, though, the data presented clearly shows charter schools outperforming their traditional public school competitors considerably.

Not a long read but there are plenty of points that didn't completely stick, so I will revisit this book immediately. Also, I hope Sowell expands this book soon. More cases for charter schools need to be made.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know a little more about the ins and outs of the educational system, and the entrenched interests in the teachers unions, politicians and educational bureaucrats that benefit from the status quo, whether or not children in public schools are properly educated.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a proponent of charter schools, Sowell masterfully crafts an objective, succinct and powerful argument. As one with little to no prior knowledge of charter schools before this book, I at no point had trouble grasping the concepts and evidence described by Sowell.

However, I finished this read with just as many questions on the subject as I had answers (i.e. Is charter school success replicable at scale / what day-to-day operational differences are there between charters and traditional outside of disciplinary systems, teacher education requirements, longer school days and performance-based benchmarks / how likely is it that charter schools will continue to operate with autonomy / among many, many others). Additionally, I would have enjoyed reading in more detail about what can be done in the future to ensure the survival of the successful charter school. Sowell did describe an answer to this question, but only in ~3 short pages at the end of the book. A more in-depth explanation here and to each of these questions would have driven home his argument.

With that said, many of the questions I have here require either a subjective opinion or empirical data to back it up, which may not be readily available to Sowell.

In all, I am a huge fan of Sowell and his ability to articulate often confusing topics down to a simple explanation grounded in objectivity. There isn’t a doubt I will pick up a few of his books going forward.

[Dale Coffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

By dedicating this book "To those children whose futures hang in the balance", Sowell clearly defines his purpose in writing the book. Because he is a consummate scholar, his book is very well documented. I think it is when he gets to the chapter on "Accountability" that he really throws down the gauntlet to the bureaucracy and the powerful teachers' unions. His powerful assertion is that public schools today are accountable only to the mountain of rules they must follow and the ossified bureaucracies that monitor their adherence to the rules and regulations. He explains that conversely, charter schools are responsible to the children and their parents for the educational success of the students - a stark contrast.

This is truly an open market competition because if the charter schools don't do a better job of educating the children and preparing them for college and life, then the parents would have no reason to send their children to the charter schools. According to Sowell's statistics, their are around million students on waiting lists to get into charter schools. In Dr. Sowell's own far more eloquent words, "Schools do not exist to provide iron-clad jobs for teachers, billions of dollars in union dues for teachers unions, monopolies for educational bureaucracies, guaranteed market for teachers college degrees or a captive audience for indoctrinators."

[Cristie Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book made a lot of valid points as to how those of low SES do not have the same options when it comes to education as their peers of higher SES do. Also, the author's point of investing in the students' overall learning above everything else is so important. I work in a public school and found this book to be a very interesting read.

[Ronald J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Sowell’s latest book is a bomb dropped on the intellectual opponents of charter schools, where he asks: “How can success be so unwelcome? In New York City alone, there are more than 50,000 children on waiting lists to get into charter schools. Understanding why and how educational success has been such unwelcome news to so many people and institutions is the purpose of this book.” He’s careful in his research to compare apples and apples, otherwise you can end up with sweeping conclusions based on averages, such as that Iowa has superior educational outcomes than Texas. But when you compare like to like students, Texas whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians score higher than Iowa’s. Why? Because Iowa’s population is predominantly white. Sowell looks at 2017–2018 in New York City where there were 23,000 students in particular classes meeting all these requirements in these particular schools. He analyzed students in the same building as the public school, with the same demographic characteristics. He looked at five charter schools: KIPP, Success Academy, Explore Schools, Uncommon Schools, and Achievement First networks. He analyzes the results of two tests given annually by the New York State Education Department, to both public charter school students and public schools, English Language Arts test and the Mathematics test. He concludes: “Not all charter schools are educationally successful. But the painful fact is that even those charter schools whose outcomes are disappointing often nevertheless do better than the traditional public schools housed with them in the same buildings.” Sowell points out that 50,000-plus students are on waiting lists for charter schools in New York City, where per-pupil expenditures average more than $20,000 a year, represent more than a billion dollars a year that could be lost by the traditional public school system, which also means fewer teachers employed there, and correspondingly declining union dues, since most charter school teachers do not belong to a teachers union. Any idea why the current educational establishment might be against charter schools? Follow the money. The late Albert Shanker, head of the United Federation of Teachers, was honest enough to say: “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” Even though Charters nationwide educate only 10 percent of the students, they are massive disruptive threat. Success Academy in New York is the most successful, and a constant enemy of Mayor Bill de Blasio. Sowell nukes the arguments made by Charters most vociferous critics, such as Professor Diane Ravitch of New York University, among many others, especially the idea that there’s more to school than teaching to the tests:

“Whatever the merits, in the abstract, such arguments are like something out of Alice in Wonderland when applied to children unable to do arithmetic in their neighborhood public school, nor be fluent in the language of the wider society beyond their neighborhood—“I’m not going to put my kids in art when they can’t read.” For low-income minority students, a mastery of mathematics and English is a ticket out of poverty.”

What about the argument that Charters “siphon” money from public schools? Sowell replies: “At any given time, millions of American families are moving from one neighborhood to another, no public angst or outcry about the transfer of money to follow the children.”

Ravitch cites poverty as one of the “root causes” of substandard educational outcomes in low-income communities. Sowell replies: “Poverty might cause low educational outcomes—or parents’ low educational outcomes might be a cause of family poverty. In 2019 the Success Academy charter school network as a whole had a slightly higher percentage of its students reach the “proficient” level and above—in both mathematics and English—than did any of the three New York State public school districts with the highest percentages of their students scoring at the “proficient” level and above. And average family income of children in the Success Academy charter schools was $49,800. In the three highest scoring public school districts in New York State ranged from $153,369 to $291,542.49.” Another devasting critique:

Ravitch put it: “Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools.” But it’s not so simple as that. those who win in these lotteries are greatly outnumbered by those who do not win. When charter schools take a fraction of the children from motivated families, why does that prevent the traditional public schools from comparably educating the remaining majority of children from those motivated families?"

The status quo is putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of Charter school growth, such as preventing sales of buildings to them, interfering with their operations, including how they can discipline students, their rate of growth, etc. Their future is uncertain, given the entrenched interests of the establishment. But the stakes for children are enormous. Success leaves clues, but if you’re livelihood depends on the old order that includes so much failure, you’re likely to ignore its lessons. I agree with Kevin Williamson, who wrote in his review of this book: “Thomas Sowell is a national treasure in a nation that does not entirely deserve him.”

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is really only around 110 pages or so.

[Stephanie Biggs]

Bookclub august 2025 pick. Not one I would have read on my own, and looking forward to discussing with my public educator friends

[Matt Halvorson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone concerned about our educational system.