Take bright kids, throw in autoclave
Photo of Bronx Science HS from the NY Daily News
While leafing through an old magazine we found this article about the Bronx Science High School. We didn’t attend the school, but the third thing we learned at Pisay (Philippine Science) was that it was modeled on that science high school in the Bronx, New York. Making us the children? wards? bastards? of Bronx Science. This article is about their principal, whose methods have been widely condemned but also praised in some quarters. Ayyy the obsession with test scores.
There was a time when working at the Bronx High School of Science seemed like the pinnacle of a teaching career in the New York public schools. Along with Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science is one of the city’s most storied high schools and among its most celebrated public institutions of any kind—part of a select fraternity that promises a free education of the highest quality to anyone with the intelligence to qualify. Together, the three schools reflect some of the city’s most prized values: achievement, brains, democracy. Founded in 1938, Bronx Science counts E.L. Doctorow and Stokely Carmichael among its alumni, as well as seven Nobel laureates and six Pulitzer Prize winners. It has spawned 135 Intel science-competition finalists—more than any other high school in America. Virtually every senior last year gained acceptance to one of the country’s top colleges. The faculty has long been known as among the best, most beloved anywhere. Teachers have traditionally held on to their jobs for decades; some have come to teach the children of their former students.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 30th, 2012 at 14:33
I thought that that photograph was of the PSHS facade!
I read the article through — very interesting. In general I favor radical changes and those who initiate them. The comments though are very polarizing — many downright angry and violent, directed at the current Principal. No doubt there should have been a better way to manage all those changes.
I recall PSHS too would implement changes practically every school year, but what I remember is that they were all relatively well-managed. I know that frequent changes will continue to be made there — good schools don’t really have any other choice but to keep evolving. So administrators, teachers, students, and parents just have to manage through all those constantly.