Vol. 31 / No. 1 / Spring 2021 IndependentNEWSLETTER OF THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE What I Saw at the Global Revolution in IN THIS ISSUE Education 1 Global Revolution in By James Tooley* Education For the past two decades I’ve been on an 2 President’s Letter incredible journey. It was always such a buzz when I flew into an unfamiliar country. As 3 New Book: the plane approaches the airport, I’m always peering down, searching, investigating. I think: Those slums may be where Really Good Schools I find something that sensible people say doesn’t exist, can’t exist. 4 Independent Institute I negotiate customs and immigration, dodging officials seeking bribes (a risk that landed me a stint in an Indian prison, but that’s another story). in the News Sometimes I am met by people I’ve been in touch with, and they tell me, “You won’t find what you’re looking for here.” Often I venture alone, taking 5 The Independent Review: a taxi to a cheap hotel, then quickly going into those slums I’ve spotted from Great Literature and the plane or that I’ve inferred from my driver might be promising. the Political Economy The smells, the colors, the hubbub. The familiar unfamiliar. I ask if of Liberty anyone knows of what I am looking for. Of course they do. “Take that alleyway, turn left where the women are braiding their hair, there’s one 6 Golden Fleece Award: on your right.” COVID-19 and And there it is. A simple building housing an extraordinary kind California’s Pandemic of school. A low-cost private school that pushes the boundaries of our of Mistakes understanding of what private enterprise can deliver to the poor. Then I find another, and another, and I marvel at the spirit of educational 7 Does Government entrepreneurship that can reach places that governments cannot or choose not to reach. Stimulus Stimulate? / I’ve explored sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, and Independent TV more recently Latin America for years now. I never fail to feel the same excitement I felt the first time I ventured into slums and found low-cost 8 Together, We Provide private schools. People denied their existence, but everywhere it is the same an Independent story: an extraordinary revolution of schools serving a majority of urban Voice poor children, outperforming public schools, and, not surprisingly, poor families’ preferred choice. These schools emerge despite extraordinary obstacles, such as abject poverty and civil strife. One school entrepreneur said something I’ll never forget, when we were speaking about the massive number of requirements his school had to meet—things like a half-acre playground, completely unattainable in the crowded slums. “Sometimes,” he said, “government is the obstacle of the people.” I’ve spoken about these schools for years at seminars in America, and always someone asks, “Why is this revolution only happening elsewhere? (continued on page 7) *James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Buckingham and Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, has been called “the Indiana Jones of education policy.” His The Power of Independent Thinking research on low-cost private schools has taken him to South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Libera, northern Nigeria, Ghana, and 17 other countries on four continents. His new book is INDEPENDENT.ORG Really Good Schools: Global Lessons for High-Caliber, Low-Cost Education (Independent 510-632-1366 Institute 2021) (see page 3). 2 INDEPENDENT PRESIDENT’S LETTER Reopening with Really Good Schools Biden’s biggest funders, have been cially during shutdowns and using the pandemic to play politics economic turmoil, as they fran- with the well-being of children to tically juggle work and children insist on demands for massive new now at home? Our pathbreaking funding and much more. Despite new book, Really Good Schools: CDC guidelines showing that the Global Lessons for High-Cal- probability of children getting or iber, Low-Cost Education by transmitting COVID-19 is mi- our Senior Fellow James Tooley nuscule, over 50 million children (see pp. 1 and 3), shatters the remain locked out of schools. And, prevailing myth that, absent gov- Johns Hopkins School of Medi- ernment, affordable, high-quality DAVID THEROUX cine’s Martin Makary has noted schools for the poor could not President in “We’ll Have Herd Immunity exist. But they do. And they are The COVID-19 pandemic has by April” (Wall Street Journal) that ubiquitous and in high demand created an enormous crisis across “Covid Cases are down 77% in six across the developing world, America as government lock- weeks. Experts should level with proving that if simply legalized, downs and other restrictions the publics about the good news.” self-organized, private education persist, just as our book by Robert Distraught parents facing is not just possible but flourish- Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, health worries, unemployment, ing—often enrolling far more would predict. In addition to the and strained families are in- students than “free” (i.e., expen- health harms to those afflicted, creasingly losing trust in the sive) government schools and at small businesses destroyed, and public-school system as they fran- very low prices in reach of even the economy disrupted, the un- tically seek out workable educa- the most impoverished families. precedented shutdowns of public tional alternatives. Many parents Parents in America can now schools across the country may unimpressed with remote learning learn that the education of their be endangering the future of an are enrolling their children in children is indeed possible— entire generation of children. private and charter schools or and likely far better—without Although President Joe Biden augmenting home schooling teachers’ unions and govern- promised to reopen most public with “learning pods” and mi- ment meddling with absurd schools in the U.S. within his cro-schooling. In the process, age-driven grade levels, worse first 100 days in office, the White millions of children are being testing regimes, and politically House later backed off, saying rescued from the abysmal failures correct propaganda. And having that this really meant in-person of public schools and the perva- experienced the first-fruits of ed- learning only one day a week. sive “progressive” indoctrination. ucational freedom, parents can be Why? The teachers’ unions, one of However, what can the many open to ever greater educational other parents do who cannot opportunities. Thankfully, they afford such alternatives, espe- now have Really Good Schools to show the way. EXECUTIVE STAFF David J. Theroux Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer Bruce L. Benson BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mary L. G. Theroux Senior Fellow Senior Vice President Michael S. Cassling Angelo M. Codevilla President and Chief Executive Officer, Graham H. Walker Senior Fellow CQuence Health Group Jonathan J. Bean Executive Director Professor of History, Southern Ivan Eland John Hagel III Illinois University William F. Shughart II Senior Fellow Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Research Director and Senior Fellow Center for the Edge, Herman Belz Williamson M. Evers Deloitte & Touche USA LLC Professor of History, Christopher B. Briggs Senior Fellow University of Maryland Publications and Public Affairs Sally S. Harris John C. Goodman President, Saint James Place, Inc. Thomas Bethell Counsel Senior Fellow Author, The Noblest Triumph: Property Sarah A. O’Dowd Carl P. Close Stephen P. Halbrook and Prosperity Through the Ages Research Fellow, Executive Editor Retired Senior Vice President, Senior Fellow Lam Research Corporation Boudewijn Bouckaert for Acquisitions and Content Professor of Law, University of Randall G. Holcombe Gary G. Schlarbaum Ghent, Belgium Paul J. Theroux Senior Fellow Private Investor Technology Director Allan C. Carlson Lawrence J. McQuillan Susan Solinsky President Emeritus, Howard Center Carla C. Zuber Senior Fellow Co-Founder, Vital Score for Family, Religion, and Society Senior Director of Advancement Benjamin Powell David J. Teece Robert D. Cooter George L. Tibbitts Senior Fellow Chairman and CEO, Herman F. Selvin Professor of Law, Publication Project Manager Berkeley Research Group, LLC Randy T Simmons University of California, Berkeley Robert M. Whaples Senior Fellow David J. Theroux Robert W. Crandall Managing Editor and Co-Editor, Founder and President, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution The Independent Review Alexander T. Tabarrok The Independent Institute Senior Fellow Richard A. Epstein Christopher J. Coyne Mary L. G. Theroux Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, Co-Editor, The Independent Review James Tooley Former Chairman, Garvey International New York University Senior Fellow Michael C. Munger George F. Gilder Alvaro Vargas Llosa BOARD OF ADVISORS Co-Editor, The Independent Review Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Leszak Balcerowicz Steve H. Hanke George B. N. Ayittey Richard K. Vedder Professor of Economics, Professor of Applied Economics, Senior Fellow Senior Fellow Warsaw School of Economics Johns Hopkins University Newsletter of the Independent Institute 3 NEW BOOK Really Good Schools A quiet revolution in education is taking place standards and testing across the developing world—the astounding yet keeps many stu- growth of private schools serving the poor, even dents highly engaged. in the impoverished regions of Asia, Africa, and Other examples of a Latin America. successful non-gov- No one has done more to investigate and explain ernmental framework the phenomenon than senior fellow James Tooley, of education are the whose pioneering research on low-cost private acclaimed Interna- schooling has taken him to some of the most trou- tional Baccalaureate bled spots on the planet. In his new book, Really program and India’s NIIT technology training Good Schools: Global Lessons for High-Caliber, certification. The picture that emerges is a learning Low-Cost Education, he illuminates key features landscape rich in variety, engagement, and quality of this global transformation, the implications for control—if government doesn’t control the frame- government involvement in education, and the work of education.