author

F. P. O'Brien

b. 1885

An early 20th-century education researcher, this author wrote closely observed studies of why students struggle in school and how high school programs were organized. His work offers a snapshot of American education at a time when commercial and academic tracks were taking shape.

1 Audiobook

The high school failures : a study of the school records of pupils failing in academic or commercial high school subjects

The high school failures : a study of the school records of pupils failing in academic or commercial high school subjects

by F. P. O'Brien

About the author

Born in 1885, Francis Paul O'Brien is best known for The High School Failures (1919), a study published by Teachers College, Columbia University. The book examines school records of students who were failing academic or commercial high school subjects, showing his interest in practical, data-based education research.

Library and catalog records also connect him with The Status of Business Courses in the High School (1928), another work focused on secondary education. Taken together, these books suggest a writer concerned with how schools served students in different programs and where those systems fell short.

Little biographical detail was easy to confirm beyond his birth year and published work, but his surviving books place him among the educational writers and researchers who helped document school practice in the United States during the early 1900s.