High Schools That Work
High Schools That Work (HSTW) is an effort-based school improvement initiative founded on the conviction that most students can master rigorous academic and career/technical studies if school leaders and teachers create an environment that motivates students to make the effort to succeed. HSTW is a nationaleffort to engage state, district and school leaders in partnership with teachers, students, parents and the community to raise student achievement in high school and middle school grades. HSTW seeks to advance the mathematics, science, communications, problem-solving and technical achievement of students by providing a framework of goals, key practices and key conditions for accelerating learning and setting higher standards. In creating this environment, more students will recognize that high school matters to their future and more students will become independent learners able to set future educational and career goals and choose courses to take to achieve those goals.
High Schools That Work is based on the belief that everyone in the education hierarchy must work together to align policies, resources, initiatives and accountability efforts to support schools in adopting and implementing comprehensive school-improvement designs. Several conditions are fundamental in using HSTW to raise student achievement:
- A clear, functional mission statement: Schools need a clear, functional mission statement to prepare high school students for success in postsecondary education and the workplace.
- Strong Leadership: Each district and school needs strong and committed leaders to improve, align and benchmark curriculums to high standards, to improve quality of instruction and to raise student achievement. Each school site should have a leadership team consisting of the principal, the assistant principal and teacher leaders.
- Plan for continuous improvement: District and school leaders need to create an organizational structure and process that ensures continuous improvement on what to teach, how to teach it, what students are expected to learn, how to assess what they have learned, and how they relate to each other, to the students and to the home and community.
- Qualified teachers: Teachers must have in-depth knowledge of their subject areas and of teaching strategies appropriate to students’ grade levels. A school superintendent and a school board that will allow the high school to adopt a flexible schedule that enables students to earn more credits.
- Commitment to goals: School leaders and teachers are committed to achieving the HSTW Goals and Key Practices. School boards are committed to having all students complete a demanding academic core and either an academic or career/technical concentration.
- Flexible scheduling: School superintendents and school boards permit high schools to adopt flexible schedules enabling students to earn more credits.
- Support for professional development: District and school leaders provide teachers with instructional materials, planning time and professional development for implementing new curriculums and research-based instructional methods.
High Schools That Work has identified the following as key practices that impact student achievement. The following are the HSTW key practices that provide direction and meaning to comprehensive school improvement and student learning:
- High Expectations – Motivate more students to meet high expectations by integrating high expectations into classroom practices and giving students frequent feedback.
- Program of Study – Require each student to complete an upgraded academic core and a concentration.
- Academic studies – Teach more students the essential concepts of the college-preparatory curriculum by encouraging them to apply academic content and skills to real-world problems and projects. School leaders need to:
- Align core academic courses to essential state and national standards that prepare youth for postsecondary studies and careers.
- Align student assignments, student work and classroom assessments to at least the proficient-level standards as measured by a NAEP-referenced exam and state assessments.
- Career/Technical Studies – provide more students access to intellectually challenging career/technical studies in high-demand fields that emphasize the higher-level mathematics, science, literacy and problem-solving skills needed in the workplace and in further education. School leaders need to:
- Develop standards, conditions and agreements for awarding postsecondary credit in high-demand career/technical fields to high school students.
- Require senior projects with academic, technical and performance standards.
- Provide students opportunities to work toward a recognized employer certification
- Work-based learning – Enable students and their parents to choose from programs that integrate challenging high school studies and work-based learning and are planned by educators, employers and students.
- Teachers working together – Provide teams of teachers from several disciplines the time and support to work together to help students succeed in challenging academic and career/technical studies. Integrate reading, writing and speaking as strategies for learning into all parts of the curriculum and integrate mathematics into science and career technical classrooms.
- Students actively engaged – Engage students in academic and career/technical classrooms in rigorous and challenging proficient-level assignments using research-based instructional strategies and technology.
- Guidance – Involve students and their parents in a guidance and advisement system that develops positive relationships and ensures completion of an accelerated program of study.
- Extra help – Provide a structured system of extra help to assist students in completing accelerated programs of study with high-level academic and technical content. School leaders need to:
- Support all students to become independent learners by building into their learning experiences opportunities to practice habits of successful learners such as study and literacy skills, time management and learning with others.
- Give students easy access to opportunities to meet course standards and graduate with their peers.
- Support teachers in forming nurturing academic relationships with students aimed at improving students’ work and achievement.
- Plan catch-up learning experiences for entering ninth-graders who are not prepared to succeed in college-preparatory courses.
- Work with postsecondary institutions to identify 11th graders not ready for postsecondary study. Develop special courses for senior year to get these students prepared.
- Culture of Continuous improvement – Use student assessment and program evaluation data to continuously improve school culture, organization, management, curriculum and instruction to advance student learning.
Additional information on the HSTW design may be found at: www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/publications/2005Pubs/05V07_enhanced_design.pdf
New Jersey’s Current High Schools That Work Sites:
2008-2009
- Abraham Clark High School, Roselle
- Bergenfield High School, Bergenfield
- Burlington Township High School, Burlington
- Camden High School, Camden
- Creative Arts High School, Camden
- Woodrow Wilson High School, Camden
- Cape May County Vocational School, Cape May Court House
- Dwight Morrow High School, Englewood
- East Orange Campus High School 9, East Orange
- East Orange Campus High School, East Orange
- Cicely Tyson School, East Orange
- Keansburg High School, Keansburg
- Long Branch High School, Long Branch
- Lower Cape May Regional High School
- Mount Olive High School, Budd Lake
- Eastside High School, Paterson
- John F. Kennedy High School, Paterson
Cumberland County Pilot
- Bridgeton High School
- Cumberland Regional High School
- Cumberland County Technical Education Center
- Millville High School
- Millville Memorial School (Grades 8-9)
- Vineland High School
Technology Centers That Work (TCTW)
NJ Shared-Time Vocational School Project
- Hunterdon County Vocational School
- Mercer County Technical School
- Cumberland Regional High School
For more information, contact:
Southern Regional Education Board
592 Tenth Street, NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30318-5790
Phone: (404) 875-9211/Fax: (404) 872-1477
www.sreb.org
Or Patricia Guazzelli, New Jersey HSTW State Coordinator at 609-633-0191 or pat.guazzelli@doe.state.nj.us
