David Brennan with Malcolm Baroway
2002
Toledo entrepreneur David Brennan (with help from Malcolm Baroway) has written this short, lively, opinionated book on the Cleveland voucher program, how it came to be, how it works and why it's controversial. Brennan has long been a major player in the Ohio school-choice saga, first chairing the Commission on Educational Choice named by Governor George Voinovich in 1992, then pressing for the voucher (and charter) legislation, then opening a pair of private schools in Cleveland (subsequently converted to charters) and remaining, throughout, a staunch advocate of more education options for kids-and for the role of the private sector in making such options available. Though this book tells interesting political and policy tales, it's chiefly an autobiographical account of David Brennan's embrace of this cause, as well as a bit of his life story. (You can also read a recent Education Week profile of him: "Millionaire Industrialist Touts 'White Hat' Firm to Build Charter Model," by Karla Scoon Reid, Education Week, May 22, 2002, http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=37whitehat.h21&keywords=Brennan.) This 122-page book contains a useful prologue by David Zanotti of the Ohio Roundtable. It's published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. The ISBN is 097-548528 and you can get more information at http://www.adti.net/brennan/index.html.
