Breaking Ranks II^TM Presents Challenges and Possibilities

Ted Sizer (left) and Tim Westerberg engaged in conversation about reforming U.S. high schools from two different perspectives at the Second General Session at the NASSP Convention.

Renowned educator Theodore R. Sizer spoke favorably about the transforming potential of Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform, NASSP's new "field guide" to school reform, during his Convention keynote address, "Closing Ranks: New Pressures, New Conflicts, New Opportunities." However, Sizer cautioned that "breaking ranks" itself is an often painful and difficult task that will require much "rattling of our assumptions and challenging of our institutional habits."

Sizer commended the leadership of NASSP for taking the risk of introducing the new school reform publication. "The temptation is to keep one's head down, pretending the world is just the same as it always was, and persist with the familiar," Sizer said. But all principals need to rethink what high schools mean and how they should be changed to ensure a quality education for all students, he continued.

Sizer said that Breaking Ranks II recommendations "run both parallel with and in opposition to" the current so-called standards movement and its practical expressions in state curriculum frameworks and tests, and particularly in the application of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Focusing his prepared remarks on the themes of personalization and student exhibitions, Sizer participated in a conversation with Tim Westerberg about the pressures, conflicts, and opportunities schools, communities, and principals face as changes are made in high schools. Westerberg, principal of Littleton (CO) High School, which is featured in Breaking Ranks II for its school improvement efforts, said that "schools are always in the process of becoming." Westerberg underscored that the process of change is ongoing.

"Washington-area professional groups such as NASSP have all too long been tarred with the charge that they are, above all, the defenders of the status quo," Sizer said, but NASSP's recommendations counter this argument. "Our Association decisively takes a different tack and suggests for our membership an alternative direction, one that draws from current research and demonstrably good practice."

Prior to Sizer's and Westerberg's remarks, Gerald N. Tirozzi, NASSP's executive director, outlined how NASSP is helping principals implement Breaking Ranks II reforms:

• Delivering free copies of the new publication to all high school principals in the United States, with the help of funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation



• Offering support and technical assistance to implement Breaking Ranks II with assistance from Brown University



• Hiring a new distinguished principal for school reform, Janice Ollarvia, who will serve as a resource for Breaking Ranks II implementation.

Tirozzi characterized the challenge of school improvement as needing to "be prepared to disrupt that which has been for that which should be."

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