Theodore Sizer good or bad? From: DNS BNA Date sent: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 09:44:04 EST To: education-consumers@tricon.net Subject: Re: Fwd. ECC: Public Engagement Art, You may have noticed that my original post was taken from the Coalition of Essential Schools listserv. How much of Sizer have you read? I've read _Horace's Compromise_, _Horace's School_, and _Horace's Hope_. My son spent two years in the middle school of a new magnet school here in Nashville that is promoted as moving toward an Essential Schools approach. Among other things that happened there, we (PTSO, of which I was president, and teachers) put on a school-wide science symposium, where groups (oh, horrors!) of students worked together on their projects, then came in on a Saturday morning to present (whoops, that's a form of "authentic assessment") them to panels of community members including engineers, university professors, etc. From a student's standpoint, I'm sure my son learned more from that project than he did from his "all-by-himself" science fair project he did this year at one of Nashville's Academic Magnets Schools. Several teacher's told me how threatening they found this project. Having very intelligent, educated community members in the school, judging presentations from students and drawing conclusions about the school's quality based on those presentations put a huge amount of pressure on those teachers. The fact that we had all students present, not just the select few that could have put the best face on our efforts, heightened that pressure. Right now, I'm reading Deborah Meier's _The Power of Their Ideas_. She's the founder of Central Park East Elementary and Central Park East Secondary School. CPESS follows an Essential Schools format. They've been very successful, and their district, East Harlem, has just been the subject of a study finding that parental choice between multiple small schools. She believes teachers and adults have things to "teach" kids. (Instructivism) She also believes that creating a community of involvement and trust with parents and teachers and students is important. And she supports the use of portfolio's and presentations in the 11th & 12th grades. Yet she's getting kids into colleges (including Ivy League), and has an extremely high retention rate (97% as I recall). Even before CPESS started, the kids going through her elementary school went on to do better in middle and high school than would have been predicted based on their socio-economic status, etc. Your attack on Sizer is as unfounded and inaccurate as the charges of elitism and racism launched at E.D. Hirsch. Read Sizer. He proposes early college in 11th and 12th grade for those academically capable students who've mastered what high school can offer by 10th grade. He's concerned about schools, inner-city and suburban, allowing students to slide by in what he calls the conspiracy of mediocrity. He describes the "deal" between students and teachers in these schools as being that the students don't create waves and do basically what they are asked, and the teachers don't ask very much. Is this right on, or what? Don't you wish every high school in your district had someone who saw schools that way and found it intolerable for principal? Is public engagement solving all the problems? Of course not. If, as the article suggests, it is a growing phenomenon, then great. I've yet to see real data that backs such a hypothesis. However, I submit that a meaningful question is what steps we can take (as citizens, voters, parents, school boards, etc.) to reshape the information flows and incentives to encourage more schools to allow and even solicit such public engagement. Dave Shearon, Nashville, TN In a message dated 98-03-26 06:11:00 EST, you write: << Gee, that "public engagement" stuff (whatever that might mean and/or whatever that might actually be) sure does sound wonderful.... However, speaking as Joan does of "connecting the dots," what sort of a picture forms when you realize -- AND WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY SAY THIS? -- what forms when you realize that Brown University, where this is all happening, is the old stamping grounds of Theodore Sizer. That's right. Ted Sizer, the Chairman of the Department of Education at Brown Univ., who startled the educational world in 1975 when he came out in favor of "Mastery" of certain topics. Sad to say, Sizer must have realized almost immediately which side his bread was buttered on, because within less than 6 weeks, he was talking out of the other side of his mouth. His "quest for Mastery" morphed into a "quest for How to Demonstrate Mastery." That's right. He decided immediately that the sort of "mastery" where students demonstrated that they had learned mathematics by passing tests was not REALLY "Mastery." Sizer started the "Portfolio" movement as a way to crush mastery, and things have gone downhill from there. Out of the cain of "Essential Schools" that Sizer started, perhaps one (1) has amounted to more than the average public school... Calling it "engagement" might confuse things for a moment. However much its owner tells you it is an alligator, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, and it smells like a duck, it is probably not an alligator... Art >> EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE