June 15, 1998

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Richard M. Daniels or Norma Trost) New District Management Structure to Support Instruction RE: NATIONAL LEADER IN STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT TO JOIN SAN DIEGO CITY SCHOOLS IN NEW CHANCELLOR POST SAN DIEGO (June 15, 1998) - San Diego City Schools Superintendent-Designate Alan D. Bersin today announced that Anthony J. Alvarado, a New York City public schools superintendent with a national reputation for dramatically improving student achievement by concentrating on the basics of teaching and learning, will become Chancellor of Instruction in San Diego City Schools as part of a new district management structure to support classroom instruction. Alvarado, 56, whose emphasis on reading instruction in recent years has raised reading scores of children in the slums of lower Manhattan as well as those on the more affluent Upper East Side, will head the district’s newly created Institute for Learning that becomes operational July 1. Bersin, who has resigned as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, will become Superintendent of Public Education of the 137,000-student San Diego district, replacing Dr. Bertha Pendleton who is retiring after a 41-year career. Bersin told an afternoon meeting of the district’s principals, vice principals,  administrators and other district staff that he has asked the Board of Education to approve Alvarado’s appointment as well as a streamlined senior management team that will “exist only to improve student achievement by supporting teaching and learning in the classroom.” “There will be two types of district employees: those who teach and those who support teaching and learning,” Bersin said.    His track record for improving academic achievement among students across racial, ethnic and economic lines has earned Alvarado a national reputation as an innovator and visionary. At the time he assumed his present position as superintendent of New York City’s Community School District Two in 1987, the Manhattan district ranked 10th out of 32 in the number of students who could read at or above grade level. Today, the district is second.  “Our principals and teachers are our most important assets to improve student achievement,” Bersin said. “Mr. Alvarado has accomplished in District Two what we must do in San Diego to improve student achievement by investing in teacher learning through focused and effective staff development,” he said. The Institute for Learning, where the district’s instructional leadership, professional development, assessment and accountability resources will be housed, is modeled after and will be affiliated with the institute bearing the same name at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center.  Alvarado has adapted the institute’s singular focus on training teachers to work differently so that students can learn more effectively in his district’s schools. Alvarado said the San Diego institute will recognize as guiding principles that school principals are the key to instructional improvement and that each school has a unique set of attributes and instructional problems that require two-way communications between administrators and principals. “Improved student achievement takes place at each school site and that’s where we will allocate our instructional energy,” Bersin said. Dr. Lauren B. Resnick, the founder and director of the Institute for Learning in Pittsburgh, said Alvarado’s past work in New York is proof to the nation that it is possible to design a whole school system in which all children learn well. “Mr. Alvarado has been able to raise achievement levels for a very diverse population of children. Those who have been behind have improved dramatically and those who are higher achievers do even better,” Resnick said.  “No one is better suited to work with Alan Bersin to take on the challenges in San Diego.” Instructional leaders reporting to Alvarado will serve as the connection between principals and Alvarado and Bersin.  Those positions will be filled and announced before July 1, Bersin said. “San Diego has the necessary conditions in place through which we can dramatically improve student achievement,” Alvarado said, referring to the district’s accountability system as well as the language arts, math, visual and performing arts  grade-level standards adopted earlier this year. The son of a Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother, Alvarado was born in Manhattan and raised in the South Bronx. He is a graduate of Fordham University where he earned both a bachelor’s and master of arts degrees in English and American literature.  Alvarado began his education career in 1967 as a junior high school teacher in the South Bronx, becoming principal of an elementary school in 1972 and superintendent of  New York City’s Community District Four in 1973.  He was chancellor of the New York City Board of Education in 1983-84 and, prior to his present position, served as director of the Consortium for Worker Literacy in New York. Alvarado is a member of the Pew Forum on Educational Reform and serves on the National Academy of Education panel dealing with Trial State Assessments and on the board of the Consortium for Policy Research and Education.  He serves on the board of Recruiting New Teachers, Inc. and was a member of the Carnegie (Corporation) Task Force on Learning in the Primary Grades and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.  He teaches at the Harvard University Institute for School Leadership. Much of the district’s present 15-member Senior Management Council will be replaced July 1 by a chief administrative officer position that will oversee the district’s finance, business and information services and human resources divisions,  and an Office of the Superintendent which will include various staff support positions.  The district’s controller, Henry Hurley, will become chief administrative officer and will continue in his present position as controller. Organized to provide staff support to the district’s schools, the Office of Superintendent will include Terry Smith as the office’s chief of staff; Dr. Frank Till, presently the deputy superintendent who will become senior deputy to the superintendent; special education headed by Dr. Luis Villegas; communications and community relations directed by Richard M. Daniels; the internal auditor; school police, and the district’s general counsel position which is expected to be filled following a statewide search now underway.