One of the popular targets of foreign aid is education, and understandably so.Yet as with most solutions sprouting from Western planners anddo-gooders, the reality on the ground is a bit different than we typicallyimagine.Likewise, the solutions are often closer than we’re led to believe.

In his book, The Beautiful Tree, James Tooley chronicles his own investigative journey throughout the developing world, seekingto uncover the local realities of educational opportunity. missionedby the World Bank to investigate private schools in adozen developing countries, Tooley began withthe assumption that suchschools were designedfor and confined to the middle classes and elite.

What he found, however,was a situationfar more rich and varied.

Beginning in the city of Hyderabad, India, Tooley’s targets initially appeared asexpected: private schools designed for the prosperous and privileged.One day, however, on a holiday off from his usual research, he ventured into the city’s slums, spontaneously stumbling on a private school created byand forthe munity. He soon met theschool’s headmaster, who explained the widespread dissatisfaction with public schooling, from over-crowded classrooms to chronicallyabsent teachers to the severe lack of accountability or parental control.

With this new friendship, his journey took a surprising shift, leading totrips to more than 50 “under-the-radar”private schools in impoverishedareas throughout the city.These were notthe schools on his original list. These were not schools for the rich and privileged. These weresmall start-ups in the poorest parts of Hyderabad, and they were growing.“There seemed to be a private school on every street corner, just as in the richer parts of the city,” Tooley writes. “I visited so many, being greeted at narrow entrances by so many students…But did they really deliver a quality education? I needed to find out.”

And so, the journey began, proceeding across India and into many other countries, from Nigeria to China to Ghana. The result: Unbeknownst to the prevailing elites, private schools were bubbling up right under their noses, emerging spontaneously and organically in some the poorest and most munities. Foundedby local entrepreneurs and educators and funded by parents dissatisfied with the government alternatives, the schools were flourishing. As for Tooley’s questions about quality, the results were astounding.

See the following excerpt from the PovertyCure series:

Whereas many Westerners are tempted to approach these challengesby offering handouts or implementing top-down initiatives, Tooley’s research demonstrates the power of bottom-up action and initiative. Althoughresources from the West can surely be put to proper use, we should recognize the far more powerful and transformative impact of the countless entrepreneurs, teachers, and parents already on the ground.

Rather than dwelling in lack and scarcity and struggle, theseare people who are seizing what’s already in theirhands, stewarding it for the growth of munities and the flourishing of their children. These are people notwaiting for the system to change or for the insulated and privileged few to rescue them via policy or donations. Instead, munitiesare innovating solutions and creating opportunity from the ground up.

Theseare “searchers,” through and through.

This isn’t to say that suchareas aren’t still struggling with severe problems, whether ineducational opportunity or otherwise. It’s also not to say there aren’t specific ways the West can leverage its wealth and resources in fruitful ways. But it isworth noting that, regardless of the resources we might have to offer, munities have plenty to teach us as well.

In America, plain about our own educational system at nearly every level of society. We have plenty of our own educational “slums” where the poor suffer under the power of elites and a bloated bureaucracy that’s indifferent to the plight of the student or the single mother. Even in areas where education is deemed “acceptable,” we find plenty of room to wage policy warfare over public schooling and the shape and contour of curriculum.

These are important,necessary battles, and much of oureffort and energy is well spent on winning them. The unjust power and control of unions and government power brokers is a tangible target and a primary obstacle to the flourishing of our children and society at large.

But what else might we do from the bottom up, regardless of how that pans out? What can we be doing in the meantime, with our own children, or the children of our own neighborhoods, and what sacrifices might thatentail?

What else might we give and build and cultivateright here, right now, to ensure a better future for our kids?

As theinspiringentrepreneurs and educators in Hyderabad might ask:“What are you waiting for?”