Lyle E. Schaller contends that large public high schools have naturally tended to evolve into dysfunctional institutions. He examines the power of the social, physical, economic, demographic, religious, geographic, and work environments to influence human behavior related to the public secondary educational system and suggests ways in which schools can learn lessons from other organizations, such as major league baseball, the business world, churches, the military, and researchers. The key assumption of this book is that students represent the number-one constituency of today's public high school. The students' perception of their school environment is more likely to influence their behavior than the perception of that same environment held by a principal or a school board member or a teacher or a parent or a taxpayer.