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Revision as of 06:13, 1 March 2006

Brooklyn Technical High School
File:Bthslogo.gif
Established 1922
School type Specialized
Interim Principal Randy Asher
Location 29 Fort Greene Pl
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone (718) 858-5150
Enrollment approx. 4,200
Mascot The Engineers
Colors Blue and White
Homepage www.bths.edu

Brooklyn Technical High School is one of New York City's three original specialized high schools, along with the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School.Template:Fn "Brooklyn Tech," as it is commonly known, is renowned for its math, science, and engineering programs. It is a member of the NCSSSMST, and operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission is by competitive examination, and as a public school, there is no tuition fee. Brooklyn Tech is noted for its famous alumni, its academics, and the large number of graduates attending prestigious universities. It has the largest enrollment of the city's specialized high schools, and is the sixth-largest school in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report.[citation needed]

Building and facilities

The school, built on its present site from 1930-33 at a cost of $6 million, is 12 stories high, and covers almost an entire city block. Facilities include:

Brooklyn Tech's broadcasting antenna is 456 feet tall, and when added to the height of the building itself (145 feet), makes it the tallest structure in Brooklyn, at 597 feet high (85 feet higher than the tallest building, the 512-foot-tall Williamsburg Savings Bank).

In 1934, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which later became the Works Projects Administration (WPA), commissioned artist Maxwell B. Starr to paint a mural in the foyer depicting the evolution of man and science throughout history.

Brooklyn Tech's founder and first principal, Dr. Albert L. Colston, had an apartment built for himself in the tower of the building, and was the only person to ever live inside Brooklyn Tech.

History

Original plan

In 1918, Dr. Albert L. Colston, chair of the Math Department at Manual Training High School, recommended establishing a technical high school for Brooklyn boys. His plan envisioned a heavy concentration of math, science, and drafting courses with parallel paths leading either to college or to a technical career in industry. By 1922, Dr. Colston’s concept was approved by the Board of Education, and Brooklyn Technical High School opened in a converted warehouse at 49 Flatbush Avenue Extension, with 2,400 students. Brooklyn Tech would occupy one more location before settling into its current site, for which the groundbreaking was held in 1930.

Early academics

A notable feature of Brooklyn Tech is its system of college-style majors . The curriculum consists of two years of general studies with a technical and mechanical emphasis, followed by two years of a student-chosen major.

The curriculum remained largely unchanged until the end of Dr. Colston's 20-year term as principal in 1942. Upon his retirement, Tech was led briefly by acting principal Ralph Breiling, who was succeeded by Principal Harold Taylor in 1944. Tech's modernization would come under Principal William Pabst, who assumed stewardship in 1946 after serving as chair of the Electrical Department. Pabst created new majors and refined older ones, allowing students to select science and engineering preparatory majors including Aeronautical; Architecture; Chemistry; Civil; Electrical (later including electronics); Industrial Design, Mechanical and Structural. Arts and Sciences, a general college preparatory curriculum, would be added later.

Tech during the 1960s

Principal Pabst retired in 1964 and in August 1965, a ten-year-old boy named Carl Johnson drowned in the swimming pool at Brooklyn Tech while swimming with his day-camp group. The next year, more than 30 graduating Seniors in the school (including many student leaders) complained that Tech's curriculum was old and outdated. Their primary complaint was that the curriculum was geared towards the small minority of students that were not planning on attending college. In 1967 the schools of New York City got to view television in the classrooms for the first time, thanks to the station WNYE-TV, then located in the transmitter center on top of Brooklyn Tech.

1968 was a turbulent year at Tech, when Principal Isidor Auerback rebuked approximately 200 students who had violated the school's dress code by wearing jeans to school. Dean Jack Feuerstein lectured the students on discipline then sent them to the auditorium, where they spent the day studying. In early February, approximately 300 students at Tech protested outside in support of the Vietnam War, with students holding signs that said "Support the Boys in Vietnam" and "Bomb Hanoi".

In May of 1969, 60 students were suspended in what was called the biggest mass suspension ever in New York City's public school system. The suspensions came about when three students were first suspended for hanging a picture of Eldridge Cleaver, spokesperson for the Black Panther Party, in the cafeteria. 60 other students refused to go to their classes to protest the suspension of these three and were subsequently suspended by Principal Auerback.

New York City specialized high schools

In 1972, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, Stuyvesant High School, and High School for Performing Arts become incorporated by the New York State Legislature as specialized high schools of New York City. The act called for a uniform exam to be administered for admission to Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, and Stuyvesant. The exam would become known as the Specialized Science High Schools Admission Test (SSHSAT) and tested students in math and science.

With its statewide recognition, the school had to become co-educational, starting a new era for Tech. Dr. Colston's vision of a school for Brooklyn boys is now a school for New York City students of both genders.

In 1973, Tech celebrated its 50th anniversary with a dinner-dance at the Waldorf Astoria. To further commemorate the anniversary, a monument was erected, with a time capsule beneath it, in the north courtyard. The monument has eight panels and each panel has a unique design that represented each of the eight majors that Tech had at that point.

In the mid-1970s, an obsolete minicomputer was donated to Tech. A record of the manufacturer and model is unknown, but it is believed to have been an IBM 1620. The computer and its peripherals were never reassembled into a operational system, due in part to the complexity of such early computers.

Technological advances again changed Tech's character in 1976, with the school adding the Graphic Communications major.

In 1983, Matt Mandery's appointment as principal made him the first Tech alumni to hold that position. The following year, Tech received the Excellence in Education award from the U.S. Department of Education. The Alumni Association was formally created during this time, and coalitions were formed with the New York City Department of Transportation.

John Tobin followed as principal in 1987. He oversaw the addition of a Bio-Medical major to the curriculum, while abolishing the Materials Science department and closing the 7th floor foundry.

Lee McCaskill controversy

Dr. Lee D. McCaskill, appointed principal in 1992, served for 14 years, during which Tech saw the installation of more computer classrooms and the switch from traditional mechanical drawing by hand to teaching the use of computer-aided design programs.

In 2003, The New York Times published an investigative article that noted "longstanding tensions" between the faculty and Principal McCaskill, "spilled into the open in October, with news reports that several teachers accused him of repeatedly sending sexually explicit e-mail messages from his school computer to staff members".Template:Fn The article described the principal as autocratic, controlling the school "largely through fear and intimidation", and documented acts of personal vindictiveness toward teachers; severe censorship of the student newspaper and of assigned English texts, including the refusual to let the Pulitzer Prize-finalist novel Continental Drift by Russell Banks be used for a class; and of bureaucratic mismanagement. The article also quoted praise from McCaskill's supervising superintendent, Reyes Irizarry, who cited the principal's expansion of music and sports programs.

A follow-up column in 2004Template:Fn found the situation had worsened due to increased teacher exodus, and documented Principal McCaskill's campaign against Alice Alcala, described as one of the city's leading Shakespeare teachers. Alcala had won Brooklyn Tech a $10,000 grant and brought in the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain for student workshops. "When [McCaskill] tried killing her Shakespeare program", the Times wrote, "she went over his head to the central administration and got it reinstated. The day after she was quoted in news articles criticizing McCaskill, she received an unsatisfactory classroom observation rating for the first time in 28 years of teaching. She was repeatedly denied access to the auditorium and in June, got an unsatisfactory for the year." Alcala left for Manhattan's Murry Bergtraum High School, where she shortly thereafter brought in $1,800 in grants for Shakespeare education, while at Brooklyn Tech, the article reported, there was no longer any course solely devoted to Shakespeare.

2005 articles in the New York Daily NewsTemplate:Fn and New York Teacher note that a $10,000 grant obtained by a teacher in 2001 to refurbish the obsolete radio room remained unused. New classroom computers were covered in plastic rather than installed because the classrooms had yet to be wired for them.

The Office of Special Investigations of the New York City Department of Education launched an investigation of McCaskill on February 2, 2006, concerning unpaid enrollment of New Jersey resident McCaskill's daughter in New York City public school, which is illegal for non-residents of the city. On February 6, McCaskill announced his resignation from Brooklyn Tech and agreed to pay $19,441 in restitution.

On February 7, 2006, the Department of Education named Randy Asher, founding principal of the High School for Math, Science and Engineering, as interim acting principal.Template:Fn Mr. Asher served as Tech's assistant principal in mathematics from 2000-2002 before leaving to become founding principal of HSMSE.

Special commissioner Richard J. Condon rebuked the Department of Education on Feb. 14 for allowing McCaskill to retire, still collecting $125,282 in accrued vacation time, just days before the OSI completed its investigation. Condon also recommended that Cathy Furman McCaskill, the principal's wife, be dismissed from her position as a teacher at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn for her part in submitting fake leases and other fraudulent documents to indicate the family lived in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn. [2] The next day, the Department of Education announced that they would move to fire her. [3]

Tech in the 21st century

Since 2001, Brooklyn Tech has undergone such refurbishing as the renovation of the school's William L. Mack Library entrance, located on the fifth-floor center section. As well, two computer labs were added.

Classes were held during the 2005 New York City transit strike, though attendance was sparse. The first day of the strike saw an estimated 400 students in attendance (10% of the school population), though the numbers swelled to 800 on the second day, and eventually 1000 went to school on the third and final day of the strike.[citation needed]

Notable alumni

Some of the following alumni have been inducted into Brooklyn Tech's Hall of Fame.

Admissions

All New York City students entering high school have the option of applying to one of the city's more than 200 public high schools. There is automatic admission to a zoned school for each neighborhood.

The New York City Specialized Science High Schools Admissions Test (SSHSAT or SHSAT) is open to all city eighth- and ninth-graders. The results of the test determine whether a student will be admitted into one of the specialized schools.

See also

Footnotes

References

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