EVENTS

Date:	Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Time:	10:00 AM -- 11:30 AM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

May 2005

Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego

In 1998, U.S. district attorney for Southern California Alan Bersin was hired to run the San Diego City Schools. This June, he will depart San Diego as the nation’s longest-serving big-city superintendent and become California’s next education secretary. During Bersin’s tumultuous tenure, he achieved national prominence for his blunt challenge to the teachers’ union and his ambitious efforts to reshape the nation’s eighth-largest school system. Last September, AEI director of education policy studies Frederick Hess led a comprehensive effort to examine the Bersin reforms, and now the fruits of that effort are available in the new book Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego (Ed. Frederick Hess, Harvard Education Press). Bersin joined Hess and several contributing authors for a frank discussion of the practical lessons that San Diego holds for urban school reformers across the nation at a May 18 AEI book forum.

Joe Williams
New York Daily News

The importance of Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego and the San Diego review effort that created it was the complete access given to evaluators to investigate the reforms implemented during Superintendent Alan Bersin’s tenure. Principals and teachers were, for the most part, open to candid questioning by reviewers, which yielded some honest and forthright discussions. Much like former Milwaukee superintendent, Howard Fuller, Bersin was hired for the position as a “change-agent” and a non-traditional superintendent who could shake up the system. Long before he assumed the post, there were protests and personal attacks--with some teachers going so far as to call him a “Nazi.” 

The conflict that arose proves that no superintendent enters a school system with a clean slate. Every institution has entrenched within it baggage and perennial battles that any new leader must address. Bersin’s reforms, outlined in the Blueprint for Student Success, were teacher-friendly changes to the system. The teachers’ union, however, opposed his top-down management style and resolved early on to challenge his superintendency. This is evidence that no approach Bersin could have taken would have yielded less vitriol or blatant opposition to his reforms, contrary to what some of his critics have argued.

Patrick J. Wolf
Georgetown University

The reforms instituted in San Diego’s special education programs began later than other district-wide reforms due to a compliance order issued by the State of California several years earlier. In late 2000 the order was lifted, allowing the district to pursue a model for special education that was not only legal but excellent. An extensive tracking system was developed to follow students as they entered and left the school system, which addressed the poor monitoring procedures previously used. Embracing the philosophy of inclusion, Bersin and his chancellor of instruction, Tony Alvarado, created the position of a site-based diagnostic and resource teacher to assist special-needs students in mainstream classrooms.

Like other reforms implemented throughout the district, special education reforms emphasized regular assessment and accountability, particularly in the area of literacy. As a result, progress is beginning to show in the number of students diagnosed with learning disabilities and the declining number of handicapped students transferring to private schools. These nascent results draw attention to the lessons that can be learned from San Diego: the value of gathering performance data, even for special needs students, and the importance that a relentless ethos of commitment to reform efforts has to implementing systemic change. 

Michael Usdan
Institute for Educational Leadership

San Diego offers an excellent case study for the role and influence of school board governance, which is an element of K-12 education whose significance is often overlooked. Bersin maintained support on the five-member school board by only one vote throughout his seven-year tenure. Had one election, conducted every two years, swayed that coalition, the entire Blueprint for Student Success would have been in jeopardy. These relationships were more venomous than most, and the acrimony was formed well before Bersin ever took office, in part because of the non-traditional nature of his superintendency and the selection process that yielded him.

San Diego also teaches the important lesson that political and community context cannot be ignored when implementing systemic education reforms. The external forces of the teachers’ union, the business community, and the city’s mayoral system all added to the complexities and battles fought throughout this process. Thus, instructional and political education reforms cannot be implemented without considering the role and importance of all constituencies in the community.

Alan Bersin
San Diego City Schools

I do not agree with all of the critiques made by evaluators in the San Diego review, but this is a trivial point in light of the importance of the transparency that was achieved throughout the process and the honest discussion that has resulted. It is critical to the current state of urban education that issues of student achievement, union turf wars, teacher work rules, and management are addressed and evaluated honestly.

When I came to the San Diego school system, clear goals had been set, but the system was completely incapable of achieving them. My team and I began by reinventing the role of the central district and creating a central management structure, removing the previous system that had given decision-making power to individual schools. Chancellor of Instruction Tony Alvarado coined the motto, “It’s the teaching, stupid,” and focused on developing superb instruction and superb instructional leaders as a lever for change. Nationwide, half of all new teachers leave the profession within five years, and I believe this is because they do not receive adequate preparation necessary to enter a classroom. Every other economic sector uses professional development to improve its workforce, yet in education, it is an element commonly ignored. We focused on creating effective teachers, and though many disagreed with the way in which these changes were implemented, most teachers now agree they are better suited to do their jobs.

Many reforms have been made in San Diego, yet the changes are not over; for urban school reform to be effective, it must be a continual evolutionary process.

AEI researcher Morgan Goatley prepared this summary.