Creating Secure School Environments through Total School Reform: The Harshman Story.

In 1986 Lilly Endowment Inc. launched a major statewide initiative—the Middle Grades Improvement Program—to bring about funda mental improvement in urban middle level edu cation throughout Indiana. Affectionately known as MGIP ("em-gip"), the initiative was one of the first and most ambitious of the current efforts at systemic middle school reform. For more than seven years MGIP has nurtured major changes in school climate, policy, and practice in 16 urban school districts encompassing dozens of schools across the state of Indiana.