At CART High near Fresno, there is no gum stuck to the floor. The saffron-yellow walls are unmarred by graffiti. Toting laptops, students file calmly down spacious, light-filled hallways to classes like biotechnology and digital marketing. There’s no fighting, no shouting, no bells. No one even cuts class.
It’s hard to believe CART High is a public high school. But in the future, this may be a model for every high school in California.
“We can see from the data that the big, old-fashioned factory model of high school – where students run from class to class with a locker as their only stable point of contact – is not succeeding,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education. “We need to overhaul the whole idea of what high school can be, and right now we have an opportunity to do so.”…