Try, Try Again Forced busing didn't work the first time All
Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public
School Choice by Richard D. Kahlenberg Brookings Institution,
2000, $29.95; 379 pages. As reviewed by John F. Witte Richard
Kahlenberg makes the kind of very clean and uncompromising
argument typical of believers in forced desegregation, whether
based on racial or, in this case, economic status. The same is
often true of promoters of school choice, among both private
and, as in this case, public schools. The book not only makes a
clear argument but also recalls a very rich political and
scholarly period in the history of American education. It brings
us back to Brown v. Board of Education and forward to Abbott v.
Burke, the New Jersey Supreme Court decision holding that an
“adequate” education, as required by the state constitution,
requires a certain level of per-pupil funding. It links James
Coleman’s seminal report on education and poverty to the latest
findings on school choice and to som