James Tooley - Really Good Schools: Global Lessons for High-Caliber, Low-Cost Education

Ten years after his pioneering book The Beautiful Tree, James Tooley has taken his argument about the transformative power of low-cost private education to a new and revelatory level in Really Good Schools. The deeply researched first part of this volume makes the compelling argument that decentralized, self-organized teaching and learning offer the best hope for children in the poorest parts of the world, from Kenya to Ghana, from Liberia to Nigeria, from Gujarat to Gansu. But Tooley wants us to understand that we in the developed worldwith our sclerotic systems of public education, our over-priced private schools for the wealthy, and our insufficient schemes for reformalso have much to learn from the spontaneous order of the countless slum schools he has visited. This is a bold and inspiring manifesto for a global revolution in education.

Niall C. Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

In the fascinating and provocative book, Really Good Schools, James Tooley applies his immense learning about low-cost, entirely-private schools around the world to develop a daring and truly thought-provoking proposal along those lines for the United States. En route, he engages in lively virtual arguments with both Charles Murray and Milton Friedman! Check it out.

Chester E. Finn Jr., Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus, Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education

Based on James Tooleys extensive knowledge of educational systems in developing countries from around the world, his pathbreaking and superbly written book Really Good Schools provides the essential understanding of how low-cost, private schools extend access to high quality education for the poor. Reading this book will allow educators and parents, academics and students, school reformers, policymakers, and the general public at last to have the proven and authoritative know-how to allow children to transition from failing government school systems in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere, into inexpensive, first-rate schools. This makes Really Good Schools utterly essential reading!

Sir Anthony F. Seldon, former Vice Chancellor, Buckingham University; Co-Founder and First Director, Institute for Contemporary British History; President, International Positive Education Network

Based on remarkable and fascinating, personal, worldwide experience and meticulous researchboth conveyed with engrossing detailJames Tooleys book Really Good Schools reveals the surprising successes of low-cost private schools pioneered by conscientious entrepreneurs (including himself) in the slums of developing countries where resources are frequently scarce, and danger often lurks. Careful to acknowledge and respond to critics, Tooley makes the case for the comparative advantage of low-cost private schools that merits respect and serious attention. Really Good Schools has relevance to both those interested in international development as well as to readers in advanced nations that are experiencing educational ferment given the social and economic problems of contemporary times, including the threat to educational attainment posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Donald A. Downs, Alexander Meiklejohn Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Law and Journalism, the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Emeritus Professor of Political Science, and Co-Founder of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

Here in Really Good Schools is perhaps the most beautiful and neglected story in the world. Unremarked and unreported, low-cost private schools have sprung up to serve some of the poorest places on Earth. For 20 years, Professor Tooley has been seeking to bring this heartening development to wider notice. He has travelled the shantytowns of Africa and India. He has found ultra-cheap independent schools even in China. Again, and again, he has heard how slum-dwellers make sacrifices to avoid the listless and perfunctory education offered in government schools. Here, in his most complete analysis of the phenomenon, he examines why it continues to expand, despite the disdain of Western aid agencies and the outright hostility of local authorities. And he ponders how some of the principles of self-organized learning might be imported into the United States and other wealthy nations. I guarantee that, after reading Really Good Schools, you will feel more cheerful.

Daniel J. Hannan, former Member, European Parliament; bestselling author and columnist, Sunday Telegraph and Washington Examiner

James Tooley, rightly celebrated for his discovery and promotion of private schools serving the poor in Africa, India, and China, now in Really Good Schools argues that the logic of his findings could transform education in America and Britain. Tooley would abolish governments role, even in the form of support for vouchers and charter schools, allowing a spontaneous order of education to emerge through the decisions of entrepreneurs and parents. A stimulating reading for a time when, as he points out, COVID-19 has brought much of formal schooling to a standstill and invites its reinvention.

Charles L. Glenn, Professor Emeritus, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Boston University

In Really Good Schools, James Tooley presents a compelling argument for education in contradistinction to schooling, a difference seemingly lost in the bureaucracies of public education. He identifies the possibilities and promise of private education as a ground-up, spontaneously ordered enterprise that can serve even the lowest income individuals more effectively than can the Administrative State.

John W. Sommer, Knight Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; former Dean, School of Social Science, University of Texas at Dallas

In Really Good Schools, James Tooley takes us on an adventure across some of the most difficult parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, revealing the extraordinary revolution of low-cost private schools taking place. But he also takes us on a journey back to the West, to Britain and America, to show the relevance of his findings for education there too. Really Good Schools is a manifesto for educational freedomthe emancipation of education, as he calls itand how we can move towards it.

Sir Robert G. W. Balchin (Lord Lingfield), Chairman, Commission on Special Needs in Education; former Pro-Chancellor, Brunel University; Founder Chairman, League of Mercy; Chairman, Centre for Education Management; former Director-General, St. John Ambulance; author, Choosing a State School: How to Find the Best Education for Your Child

James Tooley is an invaluable authority on private schooling. In Really Good Schools, his advice on the provision of accessible, affordable school choice options has never been more timely or necessary.

Frederick M. Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

I strongly support the idea of expanding the affordable independent sector: variety in education is the spice of life especially in this drearily conformist age. So, more ammunition from James Tooley and from his book