Theodore Sizer

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Theodore Sizer

• By Valerie Berlage
• April 7, 2004

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Bibliography

• www.essentialschools.org
• www.annenberginstitute.org
• www.selu.edu
• Horaces Compromise The Dilemma of the American
  High School, Theodore R. Sizer, Houghton Mifflin
  Company, 1984
• Horaces School Redesigning the American High
  School, Theodore R. Sizer, Houghton Mifflin
  Company, 1992

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The Leading Educational Reformer in the United
States

• Born in 1932
• Received a B.A. from Yale in 1953
• Received a M.A.T. from Harvard in 1957
• Returned to Harvard to get a Ph.D. in 1959
• Dean of Graduate School of Education at Harvard
  from 1964 1972
• Became Professor of Education at Brown in 1984
• Founded the Coalition of Essential Schools in
  1984
• Became the first director of the Annenberg
  Institute for Educational Reform in 1993
• Retired from Brown and stepped down as
  chairperson of Annenberg in 1996

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Theodore Sizers Publications

• Horaces Compromise The Dilemma of the American
  High School (1984)
• Horaces School Redesigning the American High
  School (1999)
• Horaces Hope What Works for the American High
  School (1997)
• Secondary Schools at the Turn of the Century
  (1964)
• Places for Learning, Places for Joy Speculations
  on American School Reform (1973)
• The Students Are Watching Schools and the Moral
  Contract (1999, co-authored with Nancy Sizer)

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The School Reform Puzzle

• What is it that admirable high school graduates
  must display to deserve our respect and
  appreciation as well as their high school
  diploma?
• How can schools function so that all adolescents
  have a fair chance to display these
  accomplishments? How can schools see to it that
  the maximum number of youngsters in fact achieves
  them?
• What sort of political administrative, and
  community context is required for schools that
  graduate such admirable young people?
• How can the distinctive concerns of individual
  students, their families, the communities in
  which they reside, and the larger state be
  respectfully accommodated and yet still nurture
  schools and a schooling system that serve all
  adolescents?

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Coalition of Essential Schools

• Started in 1984 with five schools and has grown
  in the last 10 years to over 1,000
• Only 1 CES school in NC Ann Atwater Community
  School in Durham
• Based on 10 Common Principles
• 1. The school should focus on helping young
  people learn to use their minds well. Schools
  should not be comprehensive if such a claim is
  made at the expense of the schools central
  intellectual purpose.
• 2. The schools goals should be simple that
  each student master a limited number of essential
  skills and areas of knowledge. While these
  skills and areas will, to varying degrees,
  reflect the traditional academic disciplines, the
  programs design should be shaped by the
  intellectual and imaginative powers and
  competencies that the students need, rather than
  by subjects as conventionally defined. The
  aphorism less is more should dominate
  curricular decisions should be guided by the aim
  of thorough student mastery and achievement
  rather than by an effort to merely cover content.
  

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• 3. The schools goals should apply to all
  students, while the means to these goals will
  vary as those students themselves vary. School
  practice should be tailor-made to meet the needs
  of every group of class of students.
• 4. Teaching and learning should be personalized
  to the maximum feasible extent. Efforts should
  be directed toward a goal that no teacher have a
  direct responsibility for more than 80 students
  in the high school and middle school and no more
  than 20 in the elementary school. To capitalize
  on this personalization, decisions about the
  details of the course of study, the use of
  students and teachers time and the choice of
  teaching materials and specific pedogogies must
  be unreservedly placed in the hands of principal
  and staff.
• 5. The governing practical metaphor of the
  school should be student-as-worker, rather than
  the more familiar metaphor of teacher-as-deliverer
  -of-instructional-services. Accordingly, a
  prominent pedagogy will be coaching, to provoke
  students to learn how to learn and thus to teach
  themselves.

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• 6. Teaching and learning should be documented
  and assessed with tools based on student
  performance of real tasks. Students not yet at
  appropriate levels of competence should be
  provided intensive support and resources to
  assist them quickly to meet those standards.
  Multiple forms of evidence, ranging from ongoing
  observation of the learner to completion of
  specific projects, should be used to better
  understand the learners strengths and needs, and
  to plan for further assistance. Students should
  have opportunities to exhibit their expertise
  before family and community. The diploma should
  be awarded upon a successful final demonstration
  of mastery for graduation an Exhibition. As
  the diploma is awarded when earned, the schools
  program proceeds with no strict age grading and
  with no system of credits earned by time spent
  in class. The emphasis is on the students
  demonstration that they can do important things.
• 7. The tone of the school should explicitly and
  self-consciously stress values of unanxious
  expectation (I wont threaten you but I expect
  much of you), of trust (until abused), and of
  decency (the values of fairness, generosity, and
  tolerance). Incentives appropriate to the
  schools particular students and teachers should
  be emphasized. Parents should be key
  collaborators and vital members of the school
  community.

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• 8. The principal and teachers should perceive
  themselves as generalists first (teachers and
  scholars in general education) and specialists
  second (experts in but one particular
  discipline). Staff should expect multiple
  obligations (teacher-counselor-manager) and a
  sense of commitment to the entire school.
• 9. Ultimate administrative and budget targets
  should include, in addition to total student
  loads per teacher of 80 or fewer pupils on the
  high school and middle school levels and 20 or
  fewer on the elementary level, substantial time
  for collective planning by teachers, competitive
  salaries for staff, and an ultimate per pupil
  cost not to exceed that at traditional schools by
  more than 10. To accomplish this,
  administrative plans may have to show the phased
  reduction or elimination of some services now
  provided students in many traditional schools.
• 10. The school should demonstrate
  non-discriminatory and inclusive policies,
  practices, and pedagogies. It should model
  democratic practices that involve all who are
  directly affected by the school. The school
  should honor diversity and build on the strength
  of its communities, deliberately and explicitly
  challenging all forms of inequity.

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CES Center Schools

• Only 19 nation-wide
• Provide expertise and support in 4 CES focus
  areas
• 1. School design
• 2. Classroom practice
• 3. Leadership
• 4. Community Connections
• They work with schools in documenting, sharing,
  publicly demonstrating, and advocating for their
  work and the Coalition philosophy

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Annenberg Institute for School Reform

• Established at Brown University in 1993
• Built upon the goals of the Coalition, but with a
  broader mission to enhance the quality of
  learning, or promote a better quality of
  education, for the children and youth across the
  country
• Currently focusing its work in 4 areas
• 1. Redesigning school districts to support
  high-performing, innovative schools
• 2. Developing and supporting educational
  leadership with the vision and expertise needed
  to transform schooling
• 3. Rethinking accountability to link changes in
  policy and practice to evidence that guides
  continuous school and student improvement
• 4. Fostering community-centered approaches to
  education reform