Thinking About Our Kids.

All too often, discussions about schools, schooling, education, and the reform of our educational institutions are couched in economic terms or political contexts.

Rarely do the arguments for school reform start and focus on the needs of children. The latest book by Harvard educator Harold Howe, Thinking About Our Kids, is the exception.

This delightful and insightful work responds to critics of our schools in part by focusing on how we as a society and as educators can best meet the needs of children. Those needs extend beyond what happens in schools to encompass the quality of children's lives outside of school. Howe's argument refocuses the critique by continually looking at the way the criticisms and the proposed remedies would impact what learners experience in schools.

The primary criteria he urges for our consideration is whether a proposed reform would improve the lives of children in (or at times Out Of) schools. Only if the reform can meet the criteria would he want to ask about political and economic criteria.

Howe covers much ground: the misuses of tests and standards; the role of families and communities in education; the role that race, culture and school funding play in educational equity; school choice plans; and how our views of children inhibit learning.

His alternatives are well-considered, and he does great service for administrators by reviewing and responding to the arguments of critics. Howe's book also is valuable for those seeking to balance demands for reforms against what is best for the kids.

(Thinking About Our Kids, by Harold Howe II, The Free Press, 866 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022, 1993, 224 pp. with index, $22.95 hardcover)