High Tech High charter schools

High Tech High is a San Diego, California-based school-development organization that includes a network of charter schools, a teacher certification program, and a graduate school of education. Students are admitted to the public elementary, middle, and high schools through a zip-code based lottery system in an effort to admit a demographically-diverse representative sample of San Diego County.

In 2010 it had approximately 3,500 students in high, middle, and elementary schools. The HTH website states that in 2010, 100% of high school graduates were accepted to colleges, of which 80% were to four-year institutions. As of 2008, 99% percent of graduates had entered college. Admission is via random lottery and there is no tuition.

In 1996, forty members of San Diego’s civic and high-tech industry assembled to discuss how to engage and prepare more young people for the high-tech industry. Called upon by the San Diego Economic Development Corporation and Business Roundtable, these members met regularly for the next two years to discuss how to engage and prepare local students for high-tech careers. One of these members included Gary Jacobs, former director of education programs at Qualcomm.

The original "High Tech High School" is now known as The Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High.

In 2000 the San Diego Unified School District approved the first charter and construction began in a former U.S. Navy training center in the Point Loma district, now known as Liberty Station, near the San Diego airport. The grouping of High Tech High schools in this area is known as High Tech High Village. With a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, High Tech High opened with 200 students in the 9th and 10th grades in September. In 2003, the first graduating class graduated with 50 students. In 2006 the Statewide Benefit Charter was approved. In 2007 High Tech High Digital Commons launches. In 2009 the statewide Benefit Charter was expanded to K-12.

The High Tech High program and curriculum evolved from the work of and colleagues in the New Urban High School Project, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education. The focus was on inner-city high schools using school-to-work strategies, including internships and other forms of field work, as a leverage for whole-school change. The findings of the NUHS were summarized in guides centered on six design principles. The school is virtually textbook-free. HTH is structured around four design principles, including three from NUHS and one developed by HTH:

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