John R. Shoup serves as an associate dean in the School of Education at California Baptist University in Riverside California. He has authored one book on leadership development, teaches leadership and policy at the graduate level, and has conducted workshops on leadership development and best practices from complexity science. Susan Clark Studer is a professor of education and the research coordinator for the School of Education at California Baptist University. She teaches graduate level courses in beginning and advanced research, current issues in education, and gives talks to local community organizations and schools. She is the author of The Teacher's Book of Days.

• Chapter 1 Complexity SimplifiedChapter 2 Complexity at Work in the American Educational SystemChapter 3 Leveraging Complexity at the Policy LevelChapter 4 Leveraging Complexity at the Organizational Level

Shoup and Studer detail the seven features of complex adaptive systems in a manner which serves to illuminate and clarify these systems for the reader. Complexity theory is then applied to a history of education, providing useful insights and practices supporting dynamic educational leadership and policy planning.