Design Challenges from the Hack 12-13 Group

Arts and Media Prep 
AMP is a progressive high school. Our leaders see that the traditional high school model does not work in NYC, and are dedicated to helping our students succeed. However, there are some aspects of our progressive methods that are not successful. One example of this is having heterogeneous classes. Many students come to our school well below grade level, and it is hard to teach basic skills (i.e. reading) in a heterogeneous setting, while challenging high-performing students. Another example is the grading system. The administration does not like grades, but since we need them for student transcripts, the result is a grading system that is confusing. A third example is that we are trying to do some terrific things, but do not have many resources; we are a small school that is lacking a good arts program, even though “Arts” is in our name, and we would like to have a strong internship program, but do not have enough support. We have lofty goals, and a very hard-working staff, but our problem is that some of our non-traditional methods are not doing enough to solve the problems of a  “traditional” NYC school.

Math Department New Design High School
There are multiple challenges facing the Math Department at New Design High School. The first challenge is the discrepancy of skills of entering students. Students often lack the fundamental skills needed to be successful math students in high school. Those lacking skills include strong math basics, the ability to problem solve and the inability to contextually think about math. Middle school math, and for that matter, elementary school math, does not set-up students for success in high school and college. A dominance of test prep, a culture of completing worksheets without being challenged to think deeply math and poor instruction contribute to a culture of negativity regarding math. The end result is that students often feel discouraged, unmotivated and apathetic about math instruction. The second challenge is the widening of the performance skills gap while students are at New Design.  Instead of the performance gap decreasing between high achieving and low achieving students, the gap widens for students while enrolled at New Design.  Challenges facing the department right now include:

• New Design students are in constant need have their fundamentals reinforced while learning new content. 
• The New Design curriculum is not yet aligned, vertically and/or horizontally. 
•  Differentiation with students at different levels is especially challenging.  
• There is a lack of agreement between math department members on what they value and what should be integrated into the curriculum.  Members have different approaches and philosophies toward teaching math and the disconnection between the grade level curriculums is a direct representation of the lack of common agreement among department members.   

Bronx Compass High School Challenge

One of the key goals of Bronx Compass High School is to marry essential standards based content, skills, and a classical high school education with intensive personalization in the form of internships, interest based modules, and personalized opportunities. The problem is that, as the school grows, we are unsure of how to organize, track, and support these two competing ideologies. The key difficulty to solving this issue is deciding what is important to the classical model and the personalized model and how these two meet.