For a class assignment this week, we watched a film titled “Most Likely to Succeed,” which is about a school called High Tech High in San Diego, California. The film paints an image of this school as it being “the answer” to the modern educational system. I have a few questions about the program that I will address in this blog post. 

Firstly, I question the method of deciding which students go to this school and which don’t. The film describes it as a “lottery,” which I took to mean that the students have no control whether they attend this school or not. My question is, is this fair? Is it a lottery of students who want to attend the alternative school or is it a lottery of people who fit into the zip code? Are students allowed to say “no” to attending High Tech High? There may be students who struggle with the standard public school system who would greatly benefit from attending High Tech High who don’t get chosen, but the student who succeeds in the standard public school system gets sent there instead. I have seen firsthand that some students really need structure and would not benefit from the freedom they are given at High Tech High. The film was unclear about which method they use, but I sincerely hope it is a lottery of students who actually want to be there. 

My second question is in regards to the seemingly controversial subject of testing in this film. In one scene, teachers of a different high school ask their students if they would rather be taught real life applications to the work they are doing, or be taught how to “ace the test.” Most students replied that they wanted to learn how to ace the test, justifying it with the argument that they all want to go to university, and in university they only care whether you can pass the microbiology exam, not whether you can apply microbiology to real life. I question why this came as such a shock to the teachers asking the questions. Perhaps it has been a long time since these teachers were in university, but as someone who is freshly out of an undergraduate program I can attest that you can do something right in real life a million times, but as soon as you can’t show that in a testing situation it’s game over. This doesn’t apply to all subjects, of course, but for students studying STEM subjects it is critically important that they know how to study for and do well on tests. I am curious how the High Tech High graduates pursuing STEM do on tests in their first years of university – does the system work? Does using real-world applications teach them how to perform well on tests?

This blog post has been highly critical about High Tech High and its alternative school system. This is not necessarily a representation of how I feel – I am actually intrigued by the way they do things, and thinking back on my life I believe a system like this would have worked wonderfully for my younger brother when we were both in high school. I do, however, think it is important to not paint with such a broad brush when referring to High Tech High and to address that no education system is perfect, and no education system will make every student happy.