The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial.

The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial. Susan Eaton (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill).

Journalist Susan Eaton's latest book on education tells two related stories--and tells them quite well. She first traces the still-running saga of Connecticut's landmark school desegregation case, Sheff v. O'Neill, as it was decided, reversed on appeal, reopened, settled, and reopened yet again over an 18-year period. But the centerpiece of the book is Eaton's account of four years spent in the classroom of Lois Luddy, a teacher at an outwardly successful all-minority Hartford elementary school. The indefatigable Ms. Luddy manages to prepare her 3rd and 4th graders well for state tests while ensuring that they remain curious and motivated learners. Yet, by emphasizing the narrowness of the students' life experiences, the narrative is intended to reveal the ultimate limits of reform strategies that stop short of full-scale integration along lines of race, ethnicity, and economic status. Readers may well question Eaton's vilification of the state's lawyers and expert witnesses in Sheff, her pat dismissals of current reform efforts, and her optimistic interpretation of research on the long-term consequences of integration, but it is hard not to be awed by the depth of the education challenges she so vividly describes.

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