This book examines the current political social and economic positions that push the
responsibility for the emotional health of students onto schools. The context of recent
education reform asks schools to mitigate adverse emotional health of students by developing
and implementing broad programming curriculum and policies immersed in cognitive behavioral
approaches. The design plan is intended to build resilience and develop strategies in students
that will enable them to succeed despite adverse structural conditions. The swindle of
education reform is that it deflects and blames families youth and the school system for the
social ills of society. From the perspective of a thirty year Massachusetts educator and high
school principal emerges an alternative reality that not only challenges decades of education
reform entrenched in victim blaming but also exposes a serious responsibility gap.
