Sizer has long preferred smaller schools and less standardized testing, which would seem to put him at odds with current moves toward more testing, teacher assessment, charter schools and pressure for results. But in the new book, he welcomes charters as one part of expanding choices he thinks are good for families and for reform.
He is gently dismissive of those who decry policies they don’t like and insist their changes will solve our problems. Sizer writes that all pundits ought to realize that school reform “WILL be messy, but constructive messiness is the cost of freedom. Growing up is often a painful, if energizing, process, and growing up today may take subtly different but important forms than those with which we are accustomed. . . . The leaders of every New American High School must understand and honor this.”
One suggestion relevant to our local schools comes from his experience at the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Mass. The school, which Sizer and his wife, Nancy Faust Sizer, helped found, uses oral exams, and he makes a persuasive case for using orals throughout high school.