This book draws out the critical lessons for U.S. policymakers and shows how freedom to choose schools and healthy competition among schools can create strong academic success.
Director of the Center for Educational Freedom Dr. David F. Salisbury explores and promotes education reform policies and private initiatives that will strengthen the independent education system. He has worked extensively on education issues, including school choice, home schooling, testing and accountability. Prior to joining Cato, Salisbury was president of the Sutherland Institute, a free-market think tank in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was also executive director of Children First Utah, a non-profit group that provided scholarship funds for children to attend the private school of their family's choice. For 13 years, Dr. Salisbury was on the graduate faculty in the Department of Educational Research in the College of Education at Florida State University and was a research associate in that college's Center for Educational Technology. He was also a visiting scholar at the James Madison Institute for Public Policy Studies in Tallahassee, Florida, and a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the University of Lima in Lima, Peru and at the National University of San Augustin, in Arequipa, Peru. He is author of the book Five Technologies for Educational Change and co-editor of Educational Freedom in Urban America: Brown v. Board After Half a Century. In addition, Salisbury has authored several book chapters and numerous articles that have appeared in leading scholarly journals. His op-eds have appeared in such publications as USA Today, Forbes, the New York Post, and the American Spectator. He has appeared as a guest on NRR's Justice Talking, MSNBC's Scarborough Country, CNNfn's Money & Markets, and other media. Salisbury holds a bachelor's and doctoral degree from Brigham Young University
James Tooley is director of the E. G. West Centre for Market Solutions in Education at the University of Newcastle, U.K., where he is also professor of education policy. He was formerly director of education at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Before taking up educational research, he was a mathematics teacher in Zimbabwe. He is the author of Reclaiming Education and The Global Education Industry.