War Against Schools: Academic Child Abuse

Profiled in a very favorable October 1995 interview with John Stossel of ABC TV's 20/20 program, Prof. Engelmann is an educator with more than 35 years of experience teaching elementary school children, dealing with public school administrators, and managing private training organizations.

In general terms, this book is a penetrating examination of our public schools. As a Professor of Special Education for more than 25 years, Professor Engelmann also understands all of the popular educational theories and buzzwords. Using his knowledge of both theory and practice, Professor Engelmann gives both professionals and laypeople such as parents and legislators examples of how educational theorists and public educators have neglected the trees while concentrating on the forest.

In more specific terms, this details Professor Engelmann's participation, as a developer of Direct Instruction methods and materials, in the federal government's Project Follow Through comparison of instructional methods, and how, after spending half a billion dollars, the results of the study were never formally published. Anyone interested in more fully understanding the debate surrounding our public educational systems should read War Against the Schools' Academic Child Abuse.