David Olson offers a theoretical account of the relationship between the minds of learners and the institutional structure of the school. Why do efforts at reforming schools routinely fail? It is because schools are by and large successful in achieving their two primary responsibilities. They meet the needs of the bureaucratic society which funds them as well as the goals and beliefs of the students who attend them. In meeting the needs, however, minds and societies are altered in conspicuous and important ways that are revealed in this book.