Sending your teenage terror to one of the city's top public math and science high schools doesn't necessarily mean much when it comes to later standardized test scores, according to a new paper from economists at MIT and Duke. But that doesn't mean that the schools, which they refer to as "exam-schools," don't have value. Oh, they do. Trust us. more ›

In 1995 the Department of Education (then the Board of Education) started a program called the Specialized High Schools Institute with the goal of getting more black and Hispanic students into the city's top-tier specialized high schools (i.e. Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech). But it isn't quite working out the way it was expected to. more ›

Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech students—actually, New York City high school kids in general—are you reading this? Stop, close the browser and get back to class. This year not one New York City kid made it into the final round of the Intel Science Talent Search (still the Westinghouse Science Talent Search in our hearts). New York State at least had seven finalists, beaten by California's 11. And the city had seven semi-finalists, so there is that. But still, let's do better next time, mmmkay? more ›

Schools Commissioner Cathie Black went out last night for her public debut at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting in Brooklyn Tech. And, like Bloomberg on MLK Day, she was met with some serious heckling. From the get go the audience of 200 parents, there to speak out against school closures, were in fighting spirit and had to be reminded by the panel's chairman that they should “try to do this with some civility and decorum.” And that was before Black even took to the microphone. more ›

At Brooklyn Technical High School, students who identify with either religion have the option to join the Muslim Student Association and the Jewish Club, where they can discuss issues they face without judgment from other groups. The downside is they most likely spend those group meetings preaching to the choir, which is why the school has organized a joint meeting for all of the student-run religious clubs. Jewish Club president Jeremy Landau told the Daily News, "Jews and Muslims have more in common than people think." Like how they both don't dig on swine? more ›

Department of Education officials are blaming the assistant principal at Brooklyn Tech High School for lax security that resulted in students' names, addresses and social security numbers being posted on the school's website. This has been the third hack of the school's website this year—the first posted a fake letter saying school was canceled, the second put Lil' Wayne lyrics on the site—but this is the first one that could cause students harm. Junior Jessica Tan told the Post, "It's more serious because it has to do with our Social Security numbers and identity theft...Students are more creeped out than think it's funny." more ›

The percentage of black students at New York City's best high schools has fallen over the past seven years, since the Mayor took control of public schools. Fewer black students attend seven of the eight public high schools that require entrance exams for admittance, while the number of African American students has stayed the same or fallen at 10 of the 12 schools where more than 90 percent of students graduate with Regents diplomas. more ›

Early this morning the city's Panel for Education policy voted to close 19 under-performing schools, despite eight hours of protest by thousands of teachers, parents and staffers. The hearing—which was scheduled to take place in Staten Island, but was moved to Brooklyn Tech's high school to accommodate the mob of onlookers—began Tuesday night and ran until 3 a.m. "The sad reality is that the schools we must close tonight are not meeting the standards," said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. According to the NY Times, he quieted down after the crowd began booing him, chanting "Racist Joel Klein" and "Where's Joel Klein?" whenever he left to go to the bathroom or make a phone call. more ›

Someone attempted to convince Brooklyn Tech students, parents, and teachers that the school was closed until further notice by sending a spoof email using the assistant principal's account. The phony email claimed that a construction accident in the basement had caused "a serious safety hazard for anyone that comes near or inside the school," according to the Times. more ›

The five people from the Westboro "Baptist" "Church" who picketed Brooklyn Tech yesterday were drowned out more by the hundreds of Tech students, counterprotesters, and Brooklynites chanting "We Love Jews" and shouting "Go Home" to the freaks from Topeka, who were outnumbered more than forty to one. The Times' Fort Greene blog noted that "many if not most" of the counterprotesters were students who had organized by "word of mouth and Facebook status." You do need something to do in Health class. more ›

Nepotism doesn't mix with library book picks, apparently! According to the NY Times, Brooklyn Tech High School librarian Robert Grandt paid a $500 and admitted to violated the city ethics code after promoting a graphic novel his daughter helped illustrate. Grandt, an educator for 39 years, called a manga version of Shakespeare's Macbeth a "Best New Book" pick in his newsletter and "Best Book Ever Written" in a library display of copies he donated. He said to the Times, "I’m supposed to, as part of my job, display new books and encourage the kids to read new books. So here, I displayed my daughter’s book and encouraged the kids to read it and am told that I had done something illegal.” He has since removed the book from the shelves. Next up for Brooklyn Tech kids: College, where they will be required to buy their college professors' books for courses. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a construction accident on East 46th St. in Manhattan, a stabbing on Grand Concourse and Bedford Park Blvd. in the Bronx, and an industrial accident on Quentin Rd. in Brooklyn.
• New York jeweler Tiffany & Co. is accusing online auction site eBay of pawning off bogus baubles as the genuine item.
• Fark.com may have failed in its bid to re-name a Boston sports stadium UFIA Arena, but it did get itself its own "Jeopardy!" category.
• Developers are falling over themselves to build housing on the Brooklyn site of a former fuel plant, which is considered environmentally contaminated.
• What could be of more importance than a proposed fare hike to board members of the MTA? Practically anything, as half of them didn't bother to show at a hearing to discuss jacking up ride prices.
• Brooklyn Tech got a "B"-grade on its first ever public rating. It's the first of New York's specialized high schools not to get an "A" rating.
• Robber suspected in more than a dozen city robberies taped while holding up an ice cream shop.
• Tickets are being distributed for free to an upcoming mass with the Pope at Yankee stadium, and the Vatican wanted to emphasize that scalping would be discouraged. Ticket holders who receive them for free are thus faced with an economic moral hazard.

Today, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein released the "first-ever" public school progress reports with letter grades. The reports are meant to give educators and parents a snapshot of how well schools are doing and empower them to keep improving. Mayor Bloomberg said, "With these Progress Reports, parents no longer have to navigate a maze of statistics to determine how their child's school is doing and how it compares to others. And our educators now... more ›

Stuyvesant High School is known for many things - high SAT scores, award winning students, and admission to elite universities. Football is certainly not of of those things. A new documentary, The Peglegs of Stuyvesant High, airing tonight at 6:30 pm on CSTV, focuses on the 2006 Stuyvesant Peglegs (named after Peter Stuyvesant, who had a wooden leg). Coming off a winless 2005 season, new coach Brian Sacks tries to lead his team to its first winning season in years, but is up against parents that would prefer that their students join the chess team and some players that have never played football before. more ›

The Dept. of Education released its list of where 8th Graders are choosing to attend high school and apparently Queens is the place to be in the fall of '07. Townsend Harris High received the largest number (3,452) of incoming freshmen applicants listing the school as their first choice for the next academic year. According to the NY Post City schools and their students aren't bound by geography. 8th Graders are asked to list their 12 most-preferred schools they'd like to attend and then they are assigned a high school. The high school matching program is separate from the admissions process to the city's nine specialized schools, where 27,000 students took an exam to gain entrance to schools like Bronx Science and Stuyvesant that have a total of 5,500 seats. more ›

As we mentioned yesterday, MTV is sending in their reality crew troops to Brooklyn Tech for a new series. more ›

Parents of Brooklyn Tech students, watch out! MTV is casting a pilot about a regular teen's life in Brooklyn - and the show is catchily named "Brooklyn." MTV wants Brooklyn Tech sophomores and juniors. Not only does the Brooklyn Tech High School News explain that those interested can sign up in Room 7E4, but also why Brooklyn is so hot:

With 2.6 million people packed in Brownstones, tenements and multi-unit apartment complexes, Brooklyn is a jumble of cultures, creeds and economic strata. A cross between Harlem in its heyday and Paris, Brooklyn is the ultimate city within a city. In fact, if it weren't already incorporated into New York City, Brooklyn would be the third biggest city in the country. It's said that one out of every six Americans has had a parent or grandparent who lived in Brooklyn at some point. more ›

NY State has the most semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, with 117 entrants out of 300. Eighteen semifinalists are from NYC public schools. Here's the breakdown: Stuyvesant has 7; Bronx Science has 6; Townsend Harris, SI Tech, Murrow, Midwood and Brooklyn Tech each have 1. Mayor Bloomberg said, "It's another testament to the quality of our schools." Well, it's a testament to seven schools, at least. more ›

Bad, elite high schools, bad! Investigators found out that Brooklyn Tech, the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant all made low-income students pay for AP exams, while the schools received NY State grant money to fund them. Some of you may remember that AP exams are expensive - $82 a pop nowadays (we think they were around $70-some circa 1993), and the NY Times explains that students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches qualify for free AP exams. But the schools would charge those students $20-52 an exam. The whistle was blown on the operation when Brooklyn Tech's AP coordinator, Margaret Blau, wanted to refund the students after receiving the state's reimbursement of $13,000. Brooklyn Tech principal Lee McCaskill told her "he did not wish to be troubled issuing 259 checks to students, and that the surplus should be kept in the Brooklyn Tech account to be used for student activities." more ›

Uhm, are we the only ones loving the whole public school amnesty story over at the Department of Education? As if it didn't start off juicy enough: Last month the principal of Brooklyn Tech was pushed out under revelations that he and his wife had faked their address so that their daughter could attend a top Brooklyn elementary school although the couple lives in New Jersey. McCaskill quickly retired and the city did not seek any disciplinary measures. more ›

- The principal of Brooklyn Tech had his daughter attend a Brooklyn public school...even though they live in NJ, so now he resigned and must pay the Department of Education back for her tuition! more ›

Is it surprising that the Department of Education employee busted for secretly taking pictures in faculty bathrooms and girls' locker rooms has more twisted stuff in his history? The Daily News reports that amongst the hundreds of tapes police found in Michael Conte's home, some were bestiality tapes. And the Post's addition to the story is that Conte also used cameras to take upskirt pictures of women at an outdoor market on Court Street in Brooklyn! All the more reason not to wear flouncy skirts - pencil skirts all the way. more ›

Okay, our commenter hashashin was more than right: The scary thing about the Staten Island man who was arrested for secretly installing a camera in the Long Island bathroom of a friend he was doing some bathroom renovation work for was not that he secretly installed the camera - it's that he's a Department of Education employee. Because now he's been arrested for installing spy cameras at high schools in Brooklyn. Oh, yes: Michael Conte, a janitor's assistant/part-time machinist at Westinghouse and Brooklyn Tech High Schools, installed cameras in a women's faculty bathroom and a girl's locker room. Ew ew ew ew ew! Suffolk County police let the NYPD know they were investigating Conte, and then NYPD found "800 cassettes and DVD's; pinhole cameras, high-powered lenses and other surveillance equipment; and a shotgun and ammunition" in his Staten Island home. Sweet Jesus. Then the police searched the high schools, finding the secret peepholes. And the Long Island woman alerted police when she found the hard drive that was taking pictures of her in the bathroom! Gothamist wonders if lawsuits from the teachers' union and parents of students will be far behind. more ›

It's that time of year again - when the semi-finalists are the Intel Science Talent Search are announced! The NY Times says that NY State "dominated" the list, with 140 students coming from the Empire State - and there are only 300 semi-finalists total. While Long Island's Ward Melville High had 12 semi-finalists (tied for the most with Montgomery Blair in Maryland), we looked at the NY State breakdown and think we found 24 semi-finalists from Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan combined. (If our count is wrong, tell us - we know you love telling us when we're wrong!) Looking at the public schools, there were six from Bronx Science, one from Brooklyn Tech, two from Murrow, one from James Madison, three from Midwood, two from Hunter, and eight from Stuyvesant. It's probably good times at Stuy, if only to love beating Bronx Science in another way. more ›

-Finally, check back tomorrow for our coverage of the Mayoral debate (which you too can watch, or TiVo, at 9 A.M. on channel 7). more ›

-Finally, Newsday also endorses Bloomberg. more ›

Bloomberg, beginning his final election push, yesterday announced the creation of seven new specialized high schools to take the run-off from the 28,000 students who annually apply to attend Stuvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech. The well-timed proposal came less than twenty-four hours before the first round of the city's eighth-graders took the exam to get into those highly selective schools (good luck!). To really rub in his point Bloomberg even pulled out the old statistic about how getting into the specialized schools is as hard as getting into an Ivy. Which is nice and all except that the new schools don't sound much like the old ones. Firstly, they will be a fair amount smaller and secondly they will almost all be affiliated with local colleges and universities (not that there is anything wrong with that, we're just saying). This second point was emphasized by the fact that the announcement was made at Columbia and one of the proposed schools would theoretically go on Columbia's proposed Manhattanville campus (which raises the question: didn't Columbia just start another school? Wasn't the plan for that to grow into a high school?). more ›