Summary of Theodore Sizer’s “Horace’s Compromise”

Sizer’s book, Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School, is a fictional story that represents the reality of the true educational system. The main character, Horace Smith, is a highly respected English teacher at Franklin High School who is facing the dilemma of many reality educators; the affects of the very controlled, standardized system of high school. Horace is at the age when many teachers are near retirement; however, he isn’t leaving anytime soon. Sizer quotes that “He believes—perversely, he often thinks—that Franklin High is not nearly what it could be. He wants to stay on and make it better.” As an educator, Horace must compromise his natural intuition when it comes to teaching, for he is faced with a muddled school system in which he must abide by. Throughout the passage, Sizer illustrates Horace’s view on how fragmenting the system is on the school and all the different affects it has. Horace believes that “Everything in the school affects everything else.” Horace sees how the system doesn’t directly affect students, but how it mainly affects the teachers, leaving them with little control when it comes to teaching the students. He believes that “The major elements of schooling are controlled outside the teachers’ world.” This exposes the main root of the problem—the standardized system. Horace believes that the state district, which controls the entire system, is overly powerful, only taking consideration to standardized test scores and uses those results to determine how the school system should be constructed, causing the teachers to function rather mechanically in the school setting. Horace’s concept is that “Obviously, they don’t trust us…The folk higher up are sure they know better.” This clearly entails why students face this dilemma as well. Horace describes the students as “conventional,” meaning that the all adhear to accepted standards. He believes that students take advantage of this greatly, stating that “The kids play a