Last night I saw “Most Likely to Succeed,” a new movie attracting a lot of buzz in Seattle, about a charter public high school in San Diego.  About 500 people packed Queen Anne’s vintage Uptown Cinema last night, and the movie shows again today at 3:00 pm. “Most Likely to Succeed” was selected for SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival, after winning awards at Sundance.  Many current and past education leaders were in the audience, including principals of Washington’s new charter schools opening this fall, the executive director of Stand for Children, former Governor Dan Evans, former Seattle School Board president Don Nielsen and former state superintendent of public instruction Terry Bergeson.

“Most Likely to Succeed” shows how the freedom of charter schools allows educators to resist the stifling standardization of traditional public schools. At High Tech High, the principal and teachers create programs that develop the full learning potential of every student, largely free of California’s mandate to teach to a standardized test. Instead, High Tech teachers foster the creativity, academic and leadership skills of all students, using unorthodox, innovative and sometime disruptive methods. One teacher said the program makes him feel his contribution “really matters” in the lives of his students.

Teachers at High Tech High Charter School are hired by the school principal on the basis of one-year contracts. They willingly give up their tenured job protections in exchange for the freedom, flexibility and personal fulfillment of teaching at this school.  Teachers are treated like real professionals, respected and rewarded based on performance in the classroom, not collective bargaining, the state salary grid, or decisions made by distant administrators.

We’ll publish more about the movie soon. In the meantime, it was exciting to see the level of support and enthusiasm in Seattle for what a California charter school is doing for students.

This report is part of WPC’s Charter School Follow-up Project