-RON BRANDT- On Changing Secondary Schools: A Conversation with Ted Sizer Former Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and Headmaster of Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, Ted Sizer is the author of Horace©s Compromise, the report of a five- year study of adolescent education. Now Chair of the Coalition of Essential Schools, Sizer insists that high schools can do better by doing less, by concentrating on what is essential to students© intellectual growth. You're doing your best to change You've often expressed concern increases. I also learned of the deep American high schools. Why? about "docile" students. What do frustration of many of the very best Because they©re not serving either you mean by that, and what people I listened to. And there was a kids or teachers as well as they might, causes it? clear readiness among them to The evidence from solid research over I mean youngsters who are not in move to ask the big questions and to the last 10 years research conducted the habit of taking a problem and make fundamental changes. points of view demon This is not from different solving it on their own. talk about the project you're strates a pattern of problems which we as there are few incentives Let's surprising, in, an effort to work in address. for kids actually to involved must in high schools partnership with some schools to engage their minds deeply. How would you summarize these make these changes. problems? yourself in your re © The project is a group of about 50 You saw this states We try to do too much. And the way schools? schools, a varied group in 19 cent study of high province. All have we organize youngsters© and teachers© Right. and 1 Canadian time doesn©t make sense in light of agreed to a simple set of ideas about how kids learn and how we might What did you find that was so schooling; and all of us believe that teach them. The result is that a major convincing? every community, every school, is nec ity of kids don©t perform as well as The similarity of the problems in a essarily different from any other. That they ought to, and a significantly large wide range of schools: small ones, big is, we don©t have a model to plug in; number of teachers are frustrated be ones, public ones, private ones. When we have a set of ideas. Each school is cause they feel a sense of responsibil you see a disturbing pattern repeated shaping those ideas into a program in ity to those youngsters. over and over again, its importance a way respectful of its local situation. 30 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP Does that mean you think that in about that?" And nothing is that©s How do die schools do dial? die long run schools ought to be one of their joys. On the other hand, One way is to get the ratios way- different from one another? taking them seriously forces some is down: the number of kids for which Absolutely. sues that previously were simply pa each teacher feels a sense of responsi pered over. bility. One of the common ideas of the But surely there would be some Coalition is that no high school teach diings one would expect to be A key view among us in the Coali er will ever be responsible for more similar. than 80 students (some of my friends General principles, yes, but the way tion of Essential Schools is that the most important purpose of school in schools that enroll quite demoral they play out should be different. ized kids say even 80 is too many). But What©s right in Ansley, Nebraska, ing without exception, for all stu may dents is intellectual development. bringing those ratios down within not be right for Portland, Maine, and roughly the existing per-pupil expen vice versa. Everybody says, "Sure. How do you express that in programs?" What you diture means drastically simplifying a Is it possible to generalize about see in these Coalition schools are pro school©s program. die sorts of things schools in die grams focused much more on helping project are trying to do? youngsters to use their minds well. It©s Does that mean schools are actu Yes, there are patterns. They arise particularly impressive to see that pri ally dropping parts of dieir curric- from the ideas that we share. Those ority pushed with kids who are turned ulums at this point? ideas are old chestnuts; read them and off, who have done badly in school, Absolutely. For example, a school you©ll say, "Good grief. What©s so new who are likely to drop out. serving a high proportion of demoral- FEBRl'AKV 1988 31 ized kids may have a very simple community as a whole represented program taught entirely by teams: a by the school board and by a very humanities team and a science team. It vigorous parents group felt that the has a three-period day, the first period risk of trying something new was far being a tutorial or an advisory period "One of the less than the risk of standing still. in which every adult in the building common ideas of (except one person who answers the Is it difficult for a faculty of a large phonies to say that everybody©s busy) the Coalition is that comprehensive school where meets with a group of 13 or 14 kids no high school they've tried to do a little of every and that is a ratio that©s possible within thing to begin to take seriously an existing budget. In the tutorial the teacher will ever be the idea that "less is more"? teachers gather the kids, go over responsible for It certainly is. The very expanse of homework, arrange for students to curriculum provided turf, and peo have breakfast if they haven©t had any, more than 80 ple©s jobs depend on turf. When you try to soften the clatter that a lot of students." say you re going to redefine turf, that these kids bring in at the beginning of threatens people©s jobs. Some teachers a school day. Then there©s a rwo-and-a- go to the wall and say, "I will teach half-hour block of time for English, an, only chemistry; and if I can©t do that, I and history. After lunch there©s a math- won©t do anything." Others will rise to science block. You find in some of the the challenge and say, "Okay, I©ll just schools all of the kids working with dust off my college work in physics " in let©s say mathematics and sci schools or competitive schools in the ence, or a common general theme public sector it©s a marketing prob But, inevitably, hi a school deter such as "vision and light" or in the lem for the principal and faculty: they mined to make these kinds of humanities, "revolution." You©re im get the kids whose parents want them changes, some teachers will prob mediately struck by the apparent lack to come. In other situations a one- ably lose their jobs. And that is of course electives. But the teachers in high school town, let©s say, that every actually happening? these schools will say that, because the body attends it©s a combination of Yes. program is very simple, the faculty can two things One is persuading the concentrate on personalizing their parents that simplification and focus, Let's talk a little more about these teaching. They can create sensible per placing a greater demand on the schools' strategy for change. High sonal "electives," electives that youngsters, serves traditional interests schools are generally regarded as emerge from what each youngster is even better then the status quo. Sec bastions of tradition. I think I re like and what he or she really needs. ond is that their youngsters are going member from die RAND studies of to have more options in the future the 1970s that not a single high So die big computerized master with this kind of approach. school project was regarded as schedule is much less a factor? Some of the big high schools which successful. What makes you such Some of these schools could be aren©t schools of choice have elected an optimist about the possibility over a coffee break. Now, of reforming high schools? scheduled to create, at least initially, the Essential having said that, let me point out that School program as a school-within-a- As a historian I would characterize the real issues of timing and grouping school option for parents and kids to high schools less as bastions of conser have been moved to another vatism than as mirrors of society. simply choose. All the schools that have taken You have your 3 teachers and 90 American society does not really value level. this approach have started with either kids in a Humanities group how do adolescents very much I still shake group those 90 kids? And how do 7th or 9th grade and will move gradu you ally to full-scale operation In several from reading the fifth chapter in David you regroup them every fortnight? of the schools, when the Essential Cohen©s The Shopping Mall High Now that's a complicated scheduling School-within-a school gets to its full School—a devastating critique not so These schools skip the problem.