Roger's+reading+notes

Ted Sizer 1932 – 2009
 * Started looking at American schools in late 1970’s.
 * Has been a teacher and principal.
 * Wanted to look at education from a systemic reform
 * Started with 55 schools in a range of sectors
 * Set up a reform of school structure and called them coalition schools
 * Horaces compromise was the start point, 53 year old English teacher
 * 9 Principals of a coalition school
 * 1) Focus – Reduce the breadth of the curriculum and focus on the essentials and do these well.
 * 2) Simple Goals –Student learning to focus on simple goals in the academic area as a strong base. Not on students flowing through subjects
 * 3) Universal Goals –Have universal goals for the whole school.
 * 4) Personalisation – No teacher to have more than 80 students
 * 5) Student as a Worker – not teacher as a deliverer (student to do self work)
 * 6) Diploma by exhibition – Students need to show a predetermined elementary skill level and knowledge of what the school is about.
 * 7) Attitude – School has stressed values of in anxious expectation (I wont threaten you but I expect much of you)
 * 8) Staff – teachers should be seen as generalist first, specialist second
 * 9) Budget – accommodate 80 students per teacher, collective teacher planning time, competitive salaries. Pupil costs to not be higher than 10% of other schools.
 * Citizenship is also important
 * Put teachers in teams of about 13 and then teach 210 students all aspects
 * Almost like a minischool system
 * Designated planning and peer collaborative time for teachers.
 * Mid 1991 220 schools in 7 states (18 private)
 * Findings
 * 1) Difficult to get a shared common image of schooling
 * 2) Struggled to grapple with controversy
 * 3) External feedback was was limited
 * 4) Analysis was not deep enough
 * 5) Contrasting approaches within the school
 * 6) Lack of connectedness throughout the school