April 5, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Nationally prominent educational reformer Theodore Sizer, founder and chair emeritus of the Coalition of Essential Schools, will address the topic “What Shall We Do with the American High School?” at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13, in the Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) at Amherst College. Sponsored by Amherst TEACH, Sizer's lecture is free and open to the public.

Among his prolific writings about secondary education, Sizer is best known for Horace's Hope (1996), Horace's School (1992) and Horace's Compromise (1984), three novels that examine the character and professional compromises of a fictional high-school English teacher named Horace Smith. A historian by training, Sizer is professor emeritus at Brown University and was dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education from 1964 to 1972. He also has served as headmaster of Phillips Academy. During the early '80s, Sizer headed a study looking at the practices of American high schools. He is founder and chair emeritus of the Coalition of Essential Schools, an organization dedicated to making equitable, intellectually vibrant and personalized schools the norm in American public education. In 1998, with his wife, Nancy, he served as acting co-principal of the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Mass.

Amherst TEACH is a student group dedicated to helping interested students find opportunities in teaching both at Amherst and beyond.

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