ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, a new hypothesis – that the quality of teaching would provide a high-leverage policy target – began to gain currency. It do this by discussing systemic reform in an embedded state and district context – San Diego, California – selected because of proactive attempts at both the state and local levels to address the quality of teaching and learning through multi-faceted policy strategies. The data for this chapter comes from five years of fieldwork in San Diego City Schools (SDCS), beginning in Fall 1998 as the district started its reform initiative and continuing until the Summer of 2003, with the initiative still underway. As the second largest school-district in the state, SDCS reflects the diversity of the state, albeit with a lower percentage of White students and higher percentages of African-American students and low-income students.
