Clearing the Structure Away

In a new report, an educator urges "personalized" high schools

Longer school days. Stiffer graduation requirements. Better teaching of basics. Higher pay for teachers. A barrage of recommendations for improving American public schools has been released over the past year by commissions, consultants and critics alike. This week a major new report by a respected reformer offers the most radical proposals yet. In Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (Houghton Mifflin; $16.95), Theodore Sizer argues that the nation's high schools are rigid and out of date, and he calls for a drastic reorganization of the curriculum and school day. Sizer, a former headmaster of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., as well as a former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, urges doing away with age-based grades, minimum ages for leaving school and "tracking" of students by ability. He believes that uniform course structures, in which students are taught to "regurgitate a set body of information," should be abandoned in favor of a system of Socratic questioning and coaching. Says Sizer: "The structure is getting in the way of children's learning."

Horace's Compromise is the first of three reports that will be based on a study sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of Independent Schools. Sizer and a team of researchers spent five years on the project, visiting 80 schools across the country. The communities and students varied widely, but Sizer was struck by the mediocre sameness of the schools. He concluded, "The more the high schools personalize their work with students, the more effective they will be." His report recommends that high school be open only to students who can demonstrate basic competence in literacy and mathematics, and an understanding of civic responsibility. Once admitted, students should be awarded diplomas as soon as they satisfy the school's academic requirements, whether that process takes two years or five. Says Sizer: "There is no incentive to learn if kids can get a diploma by serving time, like prisoners sitting in a classroom for a certain number of hours."

Sizer would reorganize the curriculum into four major areas: inquiry and expression, mathematics and science, literature and arts, and philosophy and history. English and writing skills would come under the first category; knowledge of the system of American government would be in the fourth. Foreign language, Sizer says, is "largely wasted" unless there is an immediate use for that language. He would also eliminate vocational education on the principle that "the best vocational education will be one in general education in the use of one's mind," followed by specific training at the work site.

The Horace of Sizer's title is a composite of the beleaguered teachers he observed in his travels. Though experienced and conscientious, Horace is forced to compromise between students' and administrators' demands and the limited time and energy he can devote to the job. Sizer's report envisions new opportunities for such teachers but also new demands. Engaging students in reasoning and thinking would require dialogue and individualized attention. No more 50-minute periods. Teachers would need to be liberally educated and less specialized; they would need more control over their curriculums and classrooms; they would ideally have responsibility for fewer students (Sizer suggests a maximum of 80, half the typical current load) and would get to know them better.

Although Sizer's ideas are controversial, they have won qualified praise from some leading educators. New York Commissioner of Education Gordon Ambach, while noting that Sizer's proposals are "very anti-school structure and anti-school systems," applauds his salutary emphasis on the role of the teacher. California Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who tends to favor less radical reforms, agrees with Sizer's call for an intensive approach. Says Honig: "We have to move from apathy to engagement. You don't grab kids with multiple choice and workbook exercises. We need to get in deeper to essays and discussions."

This week Sizer is to announce the formation of a coalition of secondary schools that will try to put the report's ideas into practice. The schools will number anywhere from five to 15, be geographically widespread, and include private as well as public institutions. Each will adapt Horace's philosophical principles to its individual needs and will not be obligated to follow such particulars as tossing out age-based grades or vocational courses. Sizer's most practical goal: to prove that quality of learning can be improved without ruinously increasing the cost of education. To that end, each coalition school will be asked to carry out the changes without adding more than 10% to its present per pupil expenditure.