The Tragicomedy of Public Education: Laughing, Crying, Thinking, Fixing is a first hand account which explains the tragedy that is the public school system and the ironic comedy that lies in attempted educational reform by the nations leaders. However, public education does not have to be tragicomic. As an educator since 1962 at the public, private, and university level, author James M Kauffman explains to the reader how to start making the public education system what it should be.