A CES Big Idea by Nancy Faust Sizer It’s our last year as a national office, our last year with a Fall Forum, but we know there’s much more to do. What will happen to our Common Principles? Which ones should we continue to support especially strongly? Now I will confess it: my favorite of the ten Common Principles is Demonstration of Mastery – the exhibition one. Teaching and learning should be documented and assessed with tools based on student performance of real tasks. Multiple forms of evidence, ranging from ongoing observation of the learner to completion of specific projects, should be
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A CES Big Idea by Joseph P. McDonald   By the late 1970s, Ted Sizer was alert to the possibility that Americans might be willing to make serious changes in their high schooling. An alternative high school movement had recently produced new light and fresh models – including the first of New York City’s small high schools. And inventive ideas about high schooling were circulating among a widening company of writers and educational adventurers. Ted knew that history has a long arc, but like Martin Luther King, he was never shy about seizing an opportunity to bend it in a
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