Our society no longer seems capable of educating itself. Critics cite funding shortages, poor planning, and administrative incompetence. But schools do more than educate; they indoctrinate — and often at the expense of traditional educational objectives. In this, argues John Taylor Gatto, schools are a resounding success.
Gatto ought to know. A seventh-grade teacher with twenty-six years’ experience, he has been named New York City Teacher Of The Year for three years running; this year the New York Senate named him State Teacher Of The Year. He has lectured on James Joyce’s Ulysses at Cornell University, and taught philosophy at California State College. He was once named Citizen Of The Week for coming to the aid of a woman who had been robbed. A feature film on his life and his teaching is in development. He has been praised by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Mario Cuomo and William F. Buckley. His views defy the facile labels of conservative, moderate, and liberal; he is a political maverick, an educational renegade.
