Edward R. Murrow High School
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Edward R. Murrow High School, founded in 1974 by Saul Bruckner and named for the pioneering television newsman Edward R. Murrow, is located in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York and is part of the New York City Department of Education.

Murrow was founded according to the pedagogical theories of John Dewey, and is known for its academic excellence as well as its laid-back atmosphere.

Murrow's second and current principal is Anthony R. Lodico who took over in 2004 after the retirement of Saul Bruckner, who had been principal since the school's creation and whose leadership was responsible for many of the school's accolades.

Academics

Murrow is consistently ranked one of the best high schools in the country, recognized by the Department of Education as a School of Excellence in 1989. [Formerly] Westinghouse Talent Search, semi-finalists consistently since 1995, and the Virtual Enterprise program has been regarded as one of the best in the country, winning such honors as 1st place at the National Business Plan competition in 2005 and 2007. Murrow's We The People also recently emerged as the 2007 New York State Champions at We The People Competition in Schenectady, New York. The We the People team also placed in the top 21 and won a Unit 2 award ^[1] at the 2007 National competition held in Washington D.C.

Keeping in line with Dewey's theories on education, Murrow has an unusual schedule structure. Classes are divided into 4 9-week "cycles", rather than 2 semesters. The daily schedule shifts depending on the day of the week, with class length varying from 50 minutes to an hour, and each class meets only 4 times a week; there are no bells to mark off the time between classes, and no time explicitly scheduled in between. Rather than having a lunch period or study halls, Murrow students have free periods called "OPTA"s, used for studying, eating, relaxing, or just to hang out

Murrow students are also permitted to take independent study courses called MILES for Murrow Independent Learning Experience. These are required courses that meet just once a week for 15 minutes to collect homework assignments. The grade is based on the final exam and a pass is credited as a 98 in the student GPA.

Murrow has a number of unique features including:

• A letter grading system, with each letter corresponding to a numerical measurement, e.g. E=90-99, G=80-89, S=65-79, and No credit (N) for grades below 65, and MI for Mastery in Independent Study (98).
• Optional Time Activities (OPTAs), which translate roughly into a free period during the course of the day.
• Four "cycles"-each one approximately 40 days in length-during the course of a given year.
• Instead of using numbers to represent class periods, Murrow uses letters from A-J, but doesn't use the letter I to represent a class period.

Edward R. Murrow High School is also known for its outstanding theater program. Their success in the arts was recognized by Mel Brooks, who granted the school to be the first ever to gain rights to the smash hit musical "The Producers" in Spring 2008 This Murrow production won a total of Seven awards at the 3rd annual National Youth Theatre Ceremony- which is a traveling reviewing company that reviews high school productions around the nation. Including 2 awards for Male Lead Actor, 2 awards for Male Supporting Actor, 1 for Female Supporting Actor, it also won Best Production and Best Ensemble.

Chess

Murrow's chess team, coached by Eliot Weiss, has won seven high-school national championships, 12 state championships and 16 NYC chess championships since 1990, including four straight from 2004-07. In March 2007, Murrow and its chess team were the subject of Michael Weinreb's book The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High-School Chess Team.There are plans to produce a major motion picture on the book, "The Kings of New York," which will open sometime in 2010. ^[2]

Notable alumni

• Darren Aronofsky, director
• Jean-Michel Basquiat, artist
• Yvette Clarke, US Congresswoman
• DJ SWB, "The SilverScreen DJ" Celebrity DJ
• Marisa Tomei, actress
• Adam Yauch, of the Beastie Boys
• Lil' Mama, Rapper
• Foxy Brown, Rapper
• Neil Krin, producer, jingle writer
• Lance Karp, Photographer
• Kevin & Eugene Shenderov, Rhodes Scholars (Brothers)
• Jerry Colonna [1]Noted Internet Investor, Philanthropist
• Noam Germain, Businessman, Strategist
• Farooq Saleem, Government Analyst, Entrepreneur
• Michael Mercurio, noted circus performer
• Jeffery Oppenheim, Film Director
• Irina Krush, US Women's Chess Champion
• Gideon Evans, Television Producer, Writer
• Darren Tseng, Competitive pie eater
• Kenneth L. Ziegler, COO Logicworks
• Jared Evan, Talk Radio Host Evilliberals.com

Notable staff

• James Bohanek, Broadway and television actor
• Mike F. Davis, Producer and Director
• Gil Colon, Producer and Director
• Sheldon Meltzner, Junior Achievement National Teacher of the Year 2003
• Terd Fegison, National Cupcake Eating Champion

References

1. ^ "National Finals 2007", Center for Civic Education, 2 May 2007
2. ^ "Gambits and grudges", Daily Telegraph Magazine, 10 March 2007

External links

• Official site