Tilting at windmills
Subtitle: school reform, San Diego, and America's race to renew public education
By: Richard Lee Colvin
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9781612505640; 9781612505657
Subjects: Educational change; School management and organization; Educational leadership; Educational planning; School superintendents
Description: "Between 1998, when Alan Bersin became superintendent of the San Diego school system, and 2005, when he left that post, San Diego undertook a sustained and notably ambitious effort to reform its public school system. Bersin's efforts were controversial from the start, both within San Diego and throughout the United States. Yet everyone agreed that the San Diego story was an immensely important one--and that it was a harbinger of reform efforts to come throughout the United States. As an early and ambitious instance of the types of reforms that by now have been implemented in city schools across the nation, San Diego has received scattered attention within the scholarly and policy worlds. Yet till now there has been no comprehensive account of Bersin's tenure and the reforms he undertook during those seven stormy years. Tilting at Windmills fills that gap. A book that draws equally on Richard Lee Colvin's deep acquaintance with contemporary education reform and the unique circumstances of the San Diego experience, Tilting at Windmills is a penetrating and invaluable account of Bersin's contentious superintendency. At the heart of Colvin's researches are years of interviews with Bersin, who granted Colvin unprecedented insight into his experiences and thoughts about the reforms he initiated. The result is a detailed and nuanced narrative of the reform process in San Diego and its relationship to comparable school reform efforts throughout the country. The definitive account of the San Diego story, Tilting at Windmills is also a crucial contribution to our more general understanding of the education reforms that have swept the nation during the past fifteen years."--Back cover of book.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-233) and index.
Table of contents: title: The selection : "the community wanted a change agent"; title: The transition : "we will stumble ... but we will do it"; title: The first year : "the district had fragmented into near anarchy"; title: Principals : "expectations were altered"; title: The "blueprint" : "a virtual mission impossible"; title: The teacher union : "this hostility is not becoming of professionals"; title: The school board : "the reason for the crisis in American education is that no one is accountable"; title: The media : "the myths started very early on ... and we were unable to get rid of most of them"; title: High schools : "we have acted ... as though high school doesn't matter"; title: Choice and charters : "people have the right to pick their own lawyers and doctors, so why shouldn't they have the right to pick their own schools?"; title: The lessons of San Diego for urban education reform; title: Commentary : making schools productive : the point of accountability and the key to renewal / Alan D. Bersin.