Let's Put Parents Back in Charge! (English and Spanish Edition) - Softcover

Joseph L. Bast; Herbert Walberg; PhD

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0963202782 ISBN 13: 9780963202789

Publisher: The Heartland Institute, 2005

Synopsis

This book is for parents, teachers, policymakers, taxpayers, and everyone who wants great schools for children regardless of their race, social background, and parents' income.

Our thesis is that America once had great kindergarten-to-twelfth grade (K-12) schools, and wouold have them once again if parents were put back in charge of their children's education by being free to choose the schools their children attend. School vouchers--tax-funded certificates or scholarships that parents can apply toward the tuition of private schools--are the mechanism for making school choice a reality.

Widespread adoption of school vouchers will take place only when majorities of voters and opinion leaders are convinced that a system of competing private and public schools would be better than the current public school monopoly, and are moved to act on their convictions. Creating a sound basis for that conviction and decision to act is the purpose of this book.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph Bast is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute, a 23-year-old national nonprofit research center located in Chicago, Illinois. According to a recent telephone survey, among state elected officials The Heartland Institute is among the nation's best-known and most highly regarded think tanks.

Bast is the coauthor of ten books, including Rebuilding America's Schools (1990), Why We Spend Too Much on Health Care (1992), Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism (1994), and Education & Capitalism (2003). His writing has appeared in Phi Delta Kappan, Economics of Education Review, Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, The Cato Journal, USA Today, and many of the country s largest-circulation newspapers.

Bast is publisher of five monthly newspapers with a combined circulation of nearly 200,000 copies. Those publications are titled School Reform News, Environment & Climate News, Health Care News, Budget & Tax News, and IT&T News.

Bast has been recognized for his contributions to public policy research and debate, including being named one of The 88 to Watch in 1988 by the Chicago Tribune; recipient of the 1994 Roe Award from State Policy Network; commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Gov. Paul E. Patton on June 19, 1996; corecipient of the 1996 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award; recipient of the 1998 Eagle Award from Eagle Forum; and recipient of the 2004 Champion of Liberty award from the Libertarian National Committee. He was elected a member of the Philadelphia Society in 2002.

Prior to being hired as The Heartland Institute s first employee in 1984, Bast was coeditor of the bimonthly magazine Nomos and studied economics as an undergraduate at The University of Chicago.

Herbert J. Walberg is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a member of its Koret K-12 Task Force. He earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Chicago and taught for 35 years at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Professor Walberg is a fellow of several academic organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Royal Statistical Society.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Heartland Institute
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0963202782
• ISBN 13: 9780963202789
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 103