Books

By David Ruenzel

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need To Do , by Laurence Steinberg with B. Bradford Brown and Sanford Dornbusch. (Simon and Schuster, $22.)

The publication of this acclaimed book marks a 180-degree shift in the education debate since the appearance of A Nation at Risk in 1983. That seminal report, warning of an educational meltdown, helped launch the school-reform movement. But in Beyond the Classroom , we learn that our efforts to reform schools are pretty much beside the point, for it's not better schools we need but better kids. Specifically, we need all students to be more like Asian-American students--studious and respectful. White, black, and Hispanic students, Steinberg argues, tend to be shallow, hedonistic, and oblivious to what schools have to offer.

Raised haphazardly by parents who are alternately neglectful and indulgent, too many bright kids fall prey to what Steinberg calls "the socialization of indifference"--they don't care much about anything. Filling the vacuum is the peer group, enticing the weak with drugs and the joys of "hanging out." Making matters worse is the distraction of drab and time-consuming part-time jobs. Steinberg suggests that if this indifference to education continues, we will fall behind the Japanese and Europeans, who, we can only guess, must be baffled why such an untutored America...