An Ancestor Speaks: Educator Dr. Barbara Sizemore (1927 – 2004), on Africa 500, Wednesday, March 8, 2023

The Wednesday, March 8 edition of Africa 500 features a lecture from one of our prominent Afrikan American educators from the Ancestral Realm, Dr. Barbara Sizemore (1927 – 2004).

The Web page Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Sizemore) had this to say in their article about Ancestor Barbara Sizemore:

In 1973, she became the first African American woman to head the public school system in a major city, when she was elected superintendent of District of Columbia Public Schools. …

Sizemore began her career in Chicago public schools, teaching English and reading in elementary and high schools from 1950 to 1963, and serving as principal of elementary and high schools from 1963 to 1967. In 1969 she was named district superintendent of the Woodlawn Experimental Schools. She was also a member of the adjunct faculty at Northeastern Illinois University from 1965 to 1971. Sizemore taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1975 to 1992. It was there that she began her research on low-income African American students and standardized tests, which she continued as dean of the School of Education at DePaul University in 1992. Sizemore’s first book, a version of her doctoral thesis titled The Ruptured Diamond: The Politics of the Decentralization of the District of Columbia Public Schools, was published in 1981. Her second book, Walking in Circles: The Black Struggle for School Reform was published posthumously in 2008.

From a bio provided by Africa 500:

Pioneering educator and school administrator Barbara Sizemore was born in Chicago, Illinois to Sylvester and Delila Lafoon. Her father died in a car accident when she was eight years old. Her mother remarried and the family moved to Evanston. Growing up in the 1930’s in the Midwest, Sizemore experienced Jim Crow whose laws were adopted and enforced. Although her elementary and middle schools were segregated, she had highly educated African-American teachers and received an excellent education.

In 1944, Sizemore enrolled in Northwestern University and graduated with a degree in classical languages in 1947. She dreamed of being a translator for the United Nations but because there were few professional opportunities for black women at that time, she began teaching in Chicago public schools that led her to her life’s calling.

In 1954, Sizemore earned an M.A. in elementary education from Northwestern. She left teaching in 1963 to become the first black female to be appointed principal of a Chicago school. In 1965, she became principal of Forrestville High School and initiated efforts to turn the school from a haven for gangs into an innovative educational experiment. By 1969, she was named director and district superintendent for the Woodlawn Experimental Schools Project and instructor at Northwestern’s Center for Inner City Studies, an innovative multi-disciplinary, multi-ethnic graduate school program in Chicago’s South Side.

In 1973, Sizemore was elected as superintendent of the District of Columbia Public School System. This was the first time an African-American woman had been chosen to head a public school system in a major U.S. city. During her tenure, Sizemore tackled highly controversial and polarizing issues such as the abolishment of standardized testing whose “Anglo-Saxon bias” she believed put African American students at a disadvantage. Sizemore’s educational views challenged the more traditional views of the school system and she was fired in 1975. Her book, The Ruptured Diamond (1981), chronicles her experiences in Washington.

After leaving Washington, Sizemore taught at the University of Pittsburgh where she conducted research on schools that served low-income African-American children. In 1992, she assumed a professorship at DePaul University in Chicago. As dean of the School of Education, she created her School Achievement Structure (SAS) program. SAS was designed to enable black students to compete successfully on any standardized exam. This was a radical departure from her earlier belief in abandoning the tests. Sizemore now argued that integrating SAS into a school’s curriculum would help low-achieving schools in Chicago become high performers. The program is used in many school districts around the country.

Sizemore served as Professor Emerita at DePaul University. She earned a Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Chicago as well as four honorary doctorate degrees. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the Urban League, NAACP and Phi Delta Kappa. In the last years of her life, she advised the Chicago public school system and continued to write and speak on educational issues.

Ms. Sizemore died from cancer in June of 2004. She was the mother of six children and had seven grandchildren.
https://www.visionaryproject.org/sizemorebarbara/

Africa 500 is broadcast every Wednesday at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org). After the broadcast, the show can be listened to by clicking below or by visiting the Audio-Visual Media pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) or the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).