Nokia & Pearson Foundation*
Larry Rosenstock taught carpentry for eleven years, after law school, in urban high schools in Boston andCambridge. He served as staff attorney for two years at the Harvard Center for Law and Education, and was a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for five years. Rosenstock was principal of the Rindge School of Technical Arts, and of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He directed the federal New Urban High School Project, was president of the Price Charitable Fund, and is the founding principal of High Tech High in San Diego. Rosenstock’s program, “CityWorks”, won the Ford Foundation Innovations in State and Local Government Award in 1992, and he is an Ashoka Fellow.
High Tech High eliminates traditional boundaries between "technical" education (code for tracking low-income kids) and traditional college preparatory, liberal arts-style secondary education (typically provided to students from higher income backgrounds). In its place, High Tech High offers a highly stimulating educational environment that encourages students to immerse themselves in real-world career experiences. Instead of attending regular classroom lectures, taking tests, and turning in homework assignments, High Tech High students spend four years working primarily on individual and group projects that provide hands-on experiences, and are complemented by academic curricula. Students are assessed for their work in teams as well as individually. Nationally recognized as "the high school of the future," High Tech High serves as a public "learning lab" and hosts at least 1,000 visitors a year who are interested in learning about the model.