You can read an endless parade of books about public education. There are surveys of history, books that focus on charters and on voucher programs, volumes devoted to the battles for desegregation and all kinds of books by pundits arguing this or that approach to funding, to curriculum and everything else. But if you want to know about public education in Milwaukee, start with Barbara Miner's new "Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education."