Edward R. Murrow High School

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Edward R. Murrow High School
Established	1974
Type	Public
Principal	Anthony R. Lodico
Students	3,985
Grades	9-12
Location	1600 Ave L Brooklyn, New York, USA
Colors	Green
Newspaper	The Murrow Network
Website	www.ermurrowhs.org

Edward R. Murrow High School, founded in 1974 by Saul Bruckner, 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.

1 Academics
2 Activities
3 Chess
4 Notable alumni
5 Notable staff
6 Trivia
7 References
8 External links

[edit] 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, and considered "one of the best schools in the nation" by Newsweek.^[1] They have had Intel Science Talent Search semi-finalists consistently since 1996, and the Virtual Enterprise program has been regarded as one of the best in the country, winning such honors as 1st place at both the National Business Plan competition in 2005, and the Citywide Business Plan competition in 2007. Murrow's We The People also recently emerged as the New York State Champions at the 2007 New York State We The People Competition in Schenectady, New York. 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, or relaxing.

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=90-95, G=80-85, S=65-75, 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.

[edit] Activities

Unlike most high schools, the school lacks sports teams; instead, it puts its funds towards its well respected business, art, drama, and other departments. The school includes the largest planetarium in New York City after the Hayden Planetarium, and its art department offers classes such as color photography and figure painting, leading The New York Times to declare that Murrow's "course offerings read like a college catalog".^[2] In addition, Murrow is one of the only schools in New York City to offer a television production program. Known as T.E.R.M. (Television at Edward R. Murrow) the student created programs are shown on Brooklyn Public Cable Access Television.

[edit] Chess

Murrow's chess team, coached by Eliot Weiss, has won six high-school national championships since 1992, including three straight from 2004-06. In March 2007, Murrow and its chess team was the subject of a book The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High-School Chess Team by Michael Weinreb ISBN 978-1-59-240261-8.^[3]

[edit] 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

[edit] Notable staff

James Bohanek, Broadway and television actor

[edit] Trivia

Murrow High School is mentioned in the song "3 The Hard Way" by The Beastie Boys. Adam Yauch raps the following line: "Used to ride the D to beat the morning bell at Edward R. Murrow out on Avenue L..." (Referring to the D train, which served the closest station to the school, Avenue M, until 2001, when it was replaced by the Q) .

Murrow can be seen in an episode of Seinfeld. It appears as a Junior High School where Jerry is set to perform.

Murrow's exterior was used as Theo's school on the Cosby Show. The show was taped for a number of years at NBC Studios located down the street (Chestnut) from Murrow.