Week+6

High Tech High demands inter-disciplinary units and allows planning time for teachers. They also have 1 year contracts for all staff. Below is a conversation.

Here is a conversation between Tony Wagner and Ben Daley (the principal of High Tech High in San Diego): Tony Wagner: "What defines a 'good' teacher here, and how do you help teachers improve?" Ben Daley: "We judge teachers by the quality of their students' work. If the student work is good, then the teaching is good." (All teachers at High Tech High are on one-year contracts.) Tony Wagner: "How do you determine the quality of student work—how do you know if 'good' is good enough?" Ben Daley: "We make student work public, and then we consider it carefully. We have many different ways of getting kids to put work out there ... We use different kinds of protocols to have conversations about the quality of the work, but we're beginning to understand that even more important than rubrics is finding great examples of student work ... and then getting kids to describe the qualities ... This helps build the culture where everyone wants to do really excellent work."


 * Question: Why are Iowa teachers so reluctant to be judged by the quality of students' work?**


 * Question: What is happening in our building/district to create a culture where students want to do really excellent work?

Question: How do we empower teachers to take risks while open to being judged on student work and sign a one-year contract?**

Can this work for Newell-Fonda? Are we willing to take the risks?