Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education 
By Joe Williams
Palgrave MacMillan
(New York, NY) 2005
$24.95, 272 pages, hard cover
Reviewed by
David A. McFarlandAssistant Director of Freshman and International Admissions
La Roche College (PA)
“The rich choose; the poor get conscripted.” Joe Williams uses this quote from John E. Coons, retired Berkeley law professor, twice in his book—summarizing his view on our educational system. To illustrate this theme, Williams provides us with vivid stories from his years as an educational writer. He depicts the inequality in education for today’s children by examining the education systems in Milwaukee and New York City. Not only do his stories stir parents, businessmen and other stakeholders to action against what he calls the “education cartel,” Williams’ stories provide practical ways they can take action.
Williams begins by introducing the reader to the political nature of our educational systems. He discusses the different parties involved in educating our children: teachers, school board members, administrators, businessmen and women, vendors, and parents. Then, Williams is able to provide a look into the school board politics, including the tactics of the teachers unions and corporate vendors. He explains why he calls the American education bureaucracy a cartel, using Wilbur Rich’s (Wellesley College) definition of organizations “which are interested primarily in self-perpetuation rather than teaching and learning in the classroom. In the world of commerce, cartels are agreements between most or all of the producers of a product to either limit their production or fix prices.” He then goes on to show how the teachers unions, particularly the strongly organized National Education Association, are able to influence students in college who desire to become teachers before they even enter the profession.
Of course, Williams does not blame all our educational problems on the teachers. There is plenty of blame to go around from his perspective. He gives examples of how bureaucratic administration keeps teachers from being paid and keeps supplies from reaching classrooms. He tells how the political nature of school boards prevents them from making decisions in the students’ best interest. He even provides insight into how vendors are able to influence testing and curriculum in our schools, not necessarily governed by what is best for the children, but rather what makes money for the vendor.
Williams’ accounts of how children are not being served in our present educational structure bring a unique perspective to the issue of school choice. Cheating Our Kids makes a strong case for school choice as a way to improve our schools systems. However, he does not provide any data showing what has happened in Milwaukee since families were given the chance to move their children to private schools. The reader does not know if the public schools actually did improve. We find out the teachers unions made some concessions on their contracts that allowed the Milwaukee Public Schools to select the best teachers as opposed to selecting the most senior teachers, but Williams does not give us any specific statistics to show the Milwaukee Public Schools improved to counter the growing number of parents that were choosing to send their kids to private schools, thus taking money from the public schools. Another issue that Williams does not address is home schooling. Although home schooling is a growing alternative to public schools, Williams does not give us any idea of how, or if, the growing numbers of families who chose to home school their children are making any impact in the public schools.
If you have an interest in a new perspective on how our school systems are being prevented from serving our children, you should read this book. Williams poses some interesting thoughts on the school choice argument—arguing that parents need to become involved. As Williams says, “Our inability to be honest about our education system’s shortcomings is one of the reasons we aren’t yet in a position to take radical steps (to) help change the equation in most of our American cities.” Maybe when people read this book, they will challenge the education cartel by examining its shortcomings.
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