MADELINE HUNTER

Anyone who writes a book called “Teach More--Faster” will find armies of followers. “How to Toilet Train Your Child in One Day” also sold well. The world is full of people who want easy answers for life’s most complicated problems.

No method can guarantee that all children will learn. Learning is an endlessly delicate, subtle, slow, sometimes excruciating process. Hunter understands nothing about subtlety. She has capitalized on the marketing mentality that threatens to invade schools. After all, this is the age of school vouchers, where bonuses are paid to schools whose test scores go up, regardless of how such increments were obtained or how long they last.

JOSIE E. MARTIN

Los Angeles