Last month, the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association selected David Kirp’s “Improbable Scholars” for its 2014 Outstanding Book Award.
The honor, reserved for education’s intellectual heavyweights, is not only a nod to Kirp’s scholarly achievement, but more, an acknowledgement of the power of marrying journalism and policy into a narrative that can drive public interest where there is seemingly so little: systems change.