When Right Is Wrong: Fundamentalists and the Public Schools.

I started to review Dick Manatt's new book, When Right Is Wrong, with conflicting feelings. My personal roots are grounded in evangelical Christianity, yet I once was an Iowa curriculum director and still work with school districts there, so I'm fully aware of the contentious challenges of religious fundamentalists.

My apprehensions were short-lived. Manatt, a professor of educational administration at Iowa State University, has been careful not to paint all Christians with an extremist brush. His helpful volume of advice and explanation is direct and candid yet reasoned and objective.

In a background chapter on the patterns of conflict, he forthrightly acknowledges ways in which educators have contributed to miscommunication through their jargon. Manatt also explains how outcome-based education, mastery learning, and Goals 2000 are perceived by critics and describes the implications of ignoring their challenges.

Unlike other books on this topic, Manatt does not focus on how to change the opinion of the censors. He asserts that most who question their school leaders are sincere seekers of information and can be recognized by applying the test of "people of good will working for the common good." Respectful, accurate responses to their queries, he says, can create new allies and advocates in the school community.

(When Right Is Wrong: Fundamentalists and the Public Schools, by Richard P. Manatt, Technomic Publishing Co., Box 3535, Lancaster, Pa. 17604, 1995, 148 pp. with index, $24.50 softcover)