1932-
Founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools

Firsthand Experience.

Ted Sizer left Harvard University and the position of Dean of the School of Education in the late 1960s to return to "the trenches." He wanted to experience life in a school to better inform his theories of educational reform. As Headmaster of the elite Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he found excellent examples of what to do and what not to do. Again in the late 1990s, Sizer ran a school along with his wife, Nancy. This time it was one of his Coalition of Essential Schools, the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Rhode Island. Sizer was able to see some of his best ideas for student achievement.

Horace as a Trilogy.

Perhaps best known for his trilogy of books using a fictional, composite teacher to remark on the state of public...