
The Beautiful Tree
A Personal Journey into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themsleves
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Narrated by:
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James Foster
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By:
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James Tooley
Everyone from Bono to the United Nations is looking for a miracle to bring schooling within reach of the poorest children on Earth. James Tooley found one hiding in plain sight. While researching private schools in India for the World Bank, and worried he was doing little to help the poor, Tooley wandered into the slums of Hyderabad's Old City. Shocked to find it overflowing with tiny, parent-funded schools filled with energized students, he set out to discover if schools like these could help achieve universal education.
Named after Mahatma Gandhi's phrase for the schools of pre-colonial India, The Beautiful Tree recounts Tooley's journey from the largest shanty town in Africa to the hinterlands of Gansu, China. It introduces listeners to the families and teachers who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and educating themselves.
©2013 James Tooley (P)2014 Cato InstituteListeners also enjoyed...




















One of my best book for 2015
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This is a must- listen!
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Eye opening!
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The truth about education
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Before listening to this book I have little doubt that if I had ever considered the question (which I hadn't) I would have assumed that poor kids in the countries that Tooley studied cannot possibly attend private schools. I stand corrected.
Excellent Book
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A rare gem that manages to be at the same time educational, entertaining and inspiring, this book should be required reading for education professionals!
James, BTW, put his money where his mouth is, and went on to start multiple low cost private schools in different emerging countries. This provides a practical validation to his research and puts James in the rare category of people that have succeeded both in academia and entrepreneurship.
Great work James!
A rare gem: educational, entertaining and inspiring
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The triumph of private schools over government monopoly will be looked back on by historians as one of the seminal events in the 21st-century in the advancement of human freedom.
A Truly Inspiring Story
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Revolutionary and Mindblowing
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- Lots of poor people are using private schools to educate their children.
- Lots of officials and development "experts" were unaware of this. Those who were aware dismissed the schools.
- Most parents believe private schools are better, even though they have to pay for them. The author finds that on most quality parameters, this is true. And then, the private schools cost a fraction of what public schools cost.
- In India, the current public school system had been established by brittish colonialists, supplanting a older system of private schools (which had been so effective that their style of teaching (peer-based) had been copied by english schools).
Reassesing public schools in developing countries
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