From 1991 through 2004 the school district of Berkeley twice reinvented its school integration. When its home-spun integration system surviveda court challenge in 2004 it made national news. It prevailed in court twice more through 2009, persists today and is cited by some parents as a motive for residingthere.

The decision-making around school integration and school choice sustains careers of a large national community of scholars and consultants.There exist journals, websites, conferences, tenured faculty and a vast academic literature. A community with curiosity about school choice or schoolintegration can have a list of people and sources via a couple of mouse clicks.

We had no outside help. In part this was because fewer resources were available in 1992. The Internet had not been born. But this is not thereason. This was not because we arrogantly believed we were too smart to learn from others. We were not particularly smart (though many of us were extremelytalkative.) We hungered for ideas and models which had succeeded. But it was tacitly assumed that the solution we would wear would have to be sewn by us.

This is my conviction with 25 years’ hindsight. My peers of 1992 would not necessarily agree but none are still on the scene to dispute me.

Superintendents of other districts, seeking a formula for replication, have asked “what kind of ‘bench strength’ was needed?” Journaliststypically declare “they [the school district] came up with X” as if it was just another day's routine work of bureaucrats.  This shrinks to insignificance a story that defies presumption. Therewas no “bench strength.” The birth spanned many years and successive casts. The credit belongs largely to the patience and persistence of volunteers, mostlyfemale.

Why has it been durable? I claim the authority of 25 years’ hindsight and of lending a hand at the capstan.  A social device which contracts citizens to sacrifice must be owned bythe citizens. Hence it must be authored by them. They must believe they can do it and that there exists a method that fits. I lack the qualifications to writea manual for experts. The experts’ community has its own venues, consumed only by each other. For an audience of motivated “regular folk” I have crafted, Ihope, a lively narrative. I find no such history in print other than those of fifty years ago.

In the national conversation I hear only uninformed assertions about how such a puzzle gets solved and its solution embraced. I hear no voice whichappears to have learned from a like experience.

For the few who have interest in the “hands on”, a “tech topics” appendix outlines the mechanics we devised.

No Calypso This Time