Gatto's One-Star Reviews ;-)

Next time you refer me to one of your "sources," make sure you tell me it's wearing a tin foil hat! :]

On-star reviews on Amazon.com of The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto:

Disappointing, April 6, 2008
By enoeiwh "Kyrie Eleison." -

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education (Paperback)

Surely Mr. Gatto has stumbled upon something of importance, I don't deny that. Most readers though may find this book largely pointless because nothing is sourced.

There is no bibliography. Quotations are not cited.

For example I was reading on page 40 that Max Mason says the new education model is for 'the control of human behavior.' When I read this I thought "wow that's interesting." Then I proceeded to find the source of this claim. This is what I found on page 391:

'Should I now attempt to dazzle you with this grotesque assemblage arranged into a formal bibliography. I'll concede it would hardly have been possible ...'

Worthless.
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Some good ideas buried under poor writing and a lack of focus, August 6, 2008
By Tabe

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education (Paperback)

First, some background on myself: I am a former high school math teacher in Colorado. I have dealt firsthand with nonsense in schools, including being ordered in a meeting with myself and another teacher to give passing grades to students in Algebra I who couldn't manage even a 58% score for the year.

That said, when I was told of this book by my brother, I was intrigued. How DID we get to where we are today? Months later, he gave me this book as a gift and I dove right in. And that's where the excitement stopped.

Gatto seems to have hit on a fantastic topic and he does ask some thought-provoking questions. Unfortunately, the good material comes about once every 20 pages, if that, and it's completely obscured by a lack of focus and organization. The book is divided up into hundreds of mini-essays, with the order for those essays (at times) seemingly random. The result is that the book wanders all over the place and Gatto's central point gets lost.

In addition, though he repeatedly states that there is "no conspiracy" in the development of the American education system, he systematically lays one out. He ties together wildly disparate groups and people, then paints them with titles like "Fabianist" even when he himself admits it doesn't apply. As my brother put it, "Yeah, he does go off into tin foil hat territory".

Further, Gatto seems to give far too much credence to obscure academic reports that couldn't possibly have been read or used by as many people as he implies.

And, finally, Gatto seems to long for a return of the one room schoolhouse and the education of yore. He claims that American had a literacy rate of 99.8% in the 1700s. That might be possible - if one excluded slaves as Gatto has obviously done (without mentioning it). Errors like this are found throughout.

Bottom line: Really not worth the effort and time, despite the good ideas that might be buried within.

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I love the anti-public school stuff, but not the disturbing ideas about beating school kids, April 2, 2007
By E. Young (Vermont, USA)

This review is from: The Underground History of American Education (Paperback)

This is an incredibly interesting book about the history of how compulsory public schooling came about in America. Gatto communicates the horrors of public schooling and his rage about it very well, and man, can I share in that feeling of anger about what public school did to me as a kid and continues to do to other innocent victims today.

BUT, I wonder why he keeps telling us that kids performed better in school when teachers were allowed to beat them. Maybe he hasn't detoxed enough from his public school teaching years, but this is just exactly what I hated about school teachers. Do they think that their frustration and anger justifies physical and verbal abuse? This seems akin to saying "the slaves worked better when we beat them" or "the public was more law-abiding when cops were allowed to take the scum behind the back of the church and beat the crap out of them."

To me, this gives an otherwise good book a bad shine.
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