Tilting at Windmills

Between 1998, when Alan Bersin became superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District, and 2005, when he left that post, San Diego undertook a sustained and comprehensive effort to reform its public school system. 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 research 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. "Change is complicated, especially when it involves power politics, a defensive status quo, and a bona fide attempt to significantly transform teaching and learning throughout an entire school district. Richard Lee Colvin looks at the reforms unleashed by San Diego Schools Superintendent Alan Bersin from the perspective of the change-agent leader. It is a fascinating vantage point that sheds tremendous light on how things really work within public education." -- Joe Williams, director, Democrats for Education Reform "Anyone interested in knowing what education reform and the struggles to achieve it actually look like at the ground level should read this book. Most everything else I read is baloney; this is the real deal." -- Michael Casserly, executive director, Council of the Great City Schools Richard Lee Colvin is the former executive director of Education Sector and a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.