ris_stitches 's review for:

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein

3.0

---

Well Thaler, I was with you until you got to the school choice chapter. Yeesh. Once I read this chapter, I started thinking about the saying “the ends justify the means”. I think in this case, the authors believe that the means justify the ends? I don’t believe that you can make decisions or suggestions about school choice without considering your own privilege and how an entire generation of children will be affected while the system gets “fixed” through school choice. It seems to me that their proposal is to offer school choice to everyone and just let the schools that become victims of the system fail? What happens to the children served by those schools? Then kids are going to private schools that are exempt from many regulations and parents have to hold the schools accountable? With what time? You may have time to do that, but most parents of school-aged children do not. I realize that this is a book about choice architecture, and the authors mention many times the idea that too many choices often make things more difficult. Wouldn’t it just make a lot more sense on the whole to level the playing field by making everyone play by the same rules? The authors assert that children who have been able to exercise school choice have been more successful than children who haven’t. I would love to see the data on this, because recent data I have seen regarding student success in charter and private schools is not nearly as positive.

Other than that. An interesting book on choice architecture and how suggestions and “nudges” affect outcomes and decision making. I enjoyed many of the other chapters, but the school choice chapter left a terrible taste in my mouth.