Trinidad has written a lively and engaging account of how dropout prediction systems have been driven by both external factors like school improvement organizations and internal factors like shared understandings of the problem of dropping out. The result is a deeply researched and convincing analysis of this important topic. Heather Haveman, author of The Power of Organizations This book provides a brilliant and comprehensive analysis of how educational change can come from the outside inthrough networked organizations that leverage educational transformation in schools. Understanding the subtle yet
powerful influence of these players in the education space is essential knowledge for education scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike. Amanda Datnow, University of California San Diego Trinidad shines a bright light on oft-hidden activists and private nonprofits that craft progressive change inside schools. These fragile, yet potent networks of reformers, scholars, and philanthropists jolt dusty bureaucracies to lift
long-ignored students. He tells an eye-opening story of how webs of organizers quietly chip away at recalcitrant institutions. Bruce Fuller, author of When Schools Work This is a remarkably clear-sighted and straightforward book demonstrating the importance of extra institutional influences on the success of school reform programs. .. Altogether, this is a real contribution to our understanding of policy implementation in general and educational policy in particular and should be read by anyone involved with public policy research, as well as scholars of education, and sociologists interested in mixed methods research design. * Allison L. Hurst, Social Forces *
