David L. Kirp

Critical opposition to needle-exchange programs as a means to curb the AIDS virus has come from black leaders, and for disturbing reasons

The elementary and junior high schools of East Harlem have been held up by many educators and politicians as models, and as proof that allowing parents to choose their children’s schools is the key to improved performance. Many of the achievements in East Harlem are real, the author finds, but the reasons for them are not always apparent—and not always faced up to by educators