Breaking the Cycle of Failed School Reform

John Tharp is a high school principal in the Southeastern United States. He has worked as a public school teacher and administrator in the Southeast and Midwest.

• Chapter 1 A Chronology of Past School ReformsChapter 2 Profiling the Failures of School ReformsChapter 3 Autopsy Data From Past ReformsChapter 4 Initiatives That May Break the Cycle of Failed ReformsChapter 5 GlossaryChapter 6 Appendix A: The Lancastrian PlanChapter 7 Appendix B: The Age-Graded PlanChapter 8 Appendix C: The Gary PlanChapter 9 Appendix D: The Trump PlanChapter 10 Appendix E: The Coalition of Essential Schools PlanChapter 11 Appendix F: The School Development Plan

It is gratifying to see an excellent dissertation focused on school reform disseminated in a book format that will be useful to practitioners, professors, and policy decision makers. Public schools as we know them are an anachronism. Dr. Tharp's study and recommendations for reform are visionary, challenging, and controversial, but should lead the way for reformers to replace our very outmoded system of education.