The One Best Way ... Not
Dear Diane,
Thanks for the news from San Diego. We can use happy stories. One of my favorite educators, Anthony Alvarado, was out there for a while, and it wasn't one of his shining success stories.
Tony was a brilliant, young superintendent of a fairly autonomous New York City district in the 1970s and early 1980s—East Harlem. He launched a "reform" that consisted mostly of encouraging and supporting teachers with interesting ideas—and then freeing them to start their own schools. He used his power to find ways to help them get around foolish rules. It was a decade of creativity and enthusiasm throughout the district. He and his assistant, Sy Fliegel, ran their own creative noncompliance regime, and they extended that mindset down to the rank and file. It paid off. Some of the innovations that came out of that period are still alive and kicking (like Central Park East), outlasting him in New York by several decades and outliving one after another draconian