Andover Mourns Loss of Ted Sizer, Legendary Educator and Headmaster

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October 22, 2009 -- Theodore Ryland Sizer, headmaster of Phillips Academy from 1972 - 1981, died at his home in Harvard, Massachusetts, on October 21, after a long illness. He was 77. The following is a statement from Barbara Landis Chase, Phillips Academy head of school:

Phillips Academy has lost a legendary headmaster; the nation, a great visionary and an innovative leader of education reform. Many of us at Andover have lost a dear friend. Yet we always will be richer for what he has left us: a sense of how schools can be their best—centered, rigorous, and most importantly, inspirational places for our young people, the nation’s future. Ted’s legacy at Andover includes the successful merger of Phillips and Abbot academies as well as the institution of a number of innovative programs, notably (MS)², a summer outreach program on the Andover campus. (MS)² prepares students of color for careers in math- and science-related fields and is still a vital program after 32 years.

The graduates of the Academy in the years Ted was headmaster remember his youthful optimism, his high idealism, and his accessibility. Writing in the April 1981 Andover Bulletin, a young alumnus said: “(Mr. Sizer) made us question assumptions we’d never looked at before and examine the bedrock of our ideas—which may be what his idea of education is… When he was up there in front of us in All-School Meeting, he tried to get us to see our responsibility to the community and to each other as individuals.”

On behalf of the faculty who taught here during Ted Sizer’s tenure, let Vic Henningsen’s words from the Bulletin speak for all: (Vic served as teaching assistant in Ted’s “Schools in America” seminar.) “Ted’s headmastership has been the Schools course writ large; he pushed the Trustees, the faculty and the alumni, as well as his students, to wrestle with the difficult questions of purposes and aims, to question what they were about and why, and to seek new levels of understanding, performance, and excellence.”

We offer condolences to Ted’s wife, Nancy, and to the Sizer family. They have announced that burial will be private, and a memorial service to celebrate “the life of this remarkable man” will be held in the next several weeks. More details and reflections of Ted’s life and legacy will continue to be posted on the Phillips Academy website.

A memorial service celebrating the life of Ted Sizer will take place on Saturday, November 21, at 2:00 p.m. at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

To read the resolution passed by the Philllips Academy Board of Trustees during its fall meeting honoring the  accomplishments of Theodore Sizer, click here

Media Coverage

NEW YORK TIMES--Theodore R. Sizer, Leading Education-Reform Advocate, Dies at 77

NPR--Education Reformer Theodore Sizer Dies at 77

BOSTON GLOBE--Leader in Effort to Overhaul Education