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Samuel Mitchell shows how and why businesses, superexperts, and pressure groups are set against volunteers, community leaders, and civic associations as participants with different visions of educational reform. Broad policies are often developed by experts who are frequently entangled in thier own abstractions. As Mitchell suggests, such experts need to be more responsive to communities. Specific alterations have been most often developed by teachers after they have become articulate in expressing their views. However, as Mitchell shows through specific cases, parents, volunteers, and even students are finding ways to make contributions to educational reform.

While these people have been dwarfed by the efforts of businesses and governments, which have sought to dominate the reform agenda, Mitchell sees a particular problem with the rise of the superexperts, who have become the coordinators for these impersonal organizations. Innovation that stresses community and family values and that includes volunteers tends to make for the most successful educational reforms. Mitchell shows how the contending sides in reform can be brought together in meaningful alliances. An important resource for educators, those who make educational policy, and the community.