Booker T. Washington High School is a high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma that is well known for its achievement in academics, fine arts, and sports.
Overview
In 2005, Booker T. Washington placed 58th in Newsweek magazine's list of top 1000 schools in the United States of America. The magazine ranked high schools according to the ratio of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 divided by the number of graduating seniors. Booker T. Washington is a public high school that accepts students based upon their academic merit, rather than their geographical ___location. The school uses applicants' middle school grades and attendance record, as well as their Iowa Tests of Educational Development scores to determine an admission decision. Two middle schools in the Tulsa area, Woodrow Wilson Middle School and George Washington Carver Middle School, are "feeders" into Booker T. Washington; students from these schools are offered preferential admission consideration. To ensure greater ethnic, economic, and intellectual diversity, students who live in historically minority and economically depressed neighborhoods are also offered preferential admission consideration.
Academics and Administration
Booker T. Washington is an International Baccalaureate world school accredited by the International Baccalaureate program to grant the IB Diploma to students who complete the two-year program. However, participation in the IB Programme is not mandatory at Booker T. Washington. In addition to the IB Programme, Advanced Placement courses are offered. Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses are taught in English, math, social studies, science, computer science, foreign language, and the arts.
Booker T. Washington was part of a study by the Education Trust and the ACT (examination). Published in 2005, On Course for Success focused on high performing, diversely populated schools that provide students with college-preparatory courses, qualified teachers, flexible teaching styles, and extra tutorial support. The study identified specific academic skills that should to be taught to high school students in order to prepare high school graduates for college. The study focused on English, math, and science courses, and claimed that Booker T. Washington was "Doing things right."
The school offers eight world languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. With the exception of Italian, all of these languages are offered through level V. In 2005, 81% of the student body was enrolled in a world language, and 10% was enrolled in a level IV language class, or higher. Booker T. Washington has an active exchange program with China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, India, and many European countries.
Five faculty members have Doctorates and 31 have Master's degrees. In Oklahoma, a Bachelor's degree is the minimum degree required to teach at a public high school. 40% of teachers at Booker T. Washington have more than eleven years of experience. The student to teacher ratio is 19 to 1.
The school claims its annual school-wide talent show, "Hi-Jinks" is the longest, continuously running variety show west of the Mississippi river in the United States. This is rather unverifiable, however, no other group has refuted the claim.
History
Booker T. Washington High School was founded in 1913 with an enrollment of fourteen students and a staff of two teachers. The school served African American high school students during segregation. The Tulsa Public Schools district was slow to react to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that de jure racial segregation was unconstitutional in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed all racial segregation in the United States. However, in 1973 Booker T. Washington was chosen to be the vehicle for Tulsa’s school desegregation program. At that time in Tulsa, most Caucasians lived in south Tulsa, whereas most African Americans lived in north Tulsa. As Booker T. Washington was built during American Segregation, it was in north Tulsa. The Tulsa School Board chose to bus in primarily Caucasian students who did not live near the neighborhood that Booker T. Washington had served, while continuing to accept students who lived near the school. This method was used by several school districts, and is called desegregation busing. After 1973, Booker T. Washington became a magnet school; it no longer had a home neighborhood from which students were accepted, instead, students had to apply for admission to the school and came from all over Tulsa. A racial quota system was established; until the 2004-2005 school year, 45% of the students accepted identified themselves as "white," 45% identified themselves as "black," and 10% came from "other" ethnic categories. However, because of the 2003 Supreme Court Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger decisions (which, incidentally, simply upheld the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision handed down in 1978), Booker T. Washington was forced to accept students using a different method. The school now uses a system that accounts for the geographical ___location in which a student resides. Because Tulsa remains rather segregated, this method maintains the ethnic diversity created by the old quota system.
Today, the student body of Booker T. Washington boasts championship basketball, football, and soccer teams, a nationally ranked academic bowl team, a physics team, a nationally competing science bowl team, a robotics team, a forensics team, and a competitive cheerleading team. Booker T. Washington was the first Tulsa Public High School to offer Advanced Placement courses and began offering the International Baccalaureate in 1983. The 2003-2004 school year marked the 90th anniversary of Booker T. Washington and the dedication of a new school building.
Notable Alumni
Judy Eason McIntyre - State Senator for district 11 in Oklahoma
R. W. McQuarters - NFL football player
Dan Piraro - Syndicated cartoonist: Bizarro
Etan Thomas - NBA basketball player
Wayman Tisdale - NBA basketball player and jazz recording artist
Amber Valletta - Model and actress
Daniel H. Wilson - Columnist for Popular Mechanics and author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
External links
- School Web Site
- Speech and Debate Team Website
- The "Newsweek" article with the complete list of the top 1,000 U.S. high schools
- The International Baccalaureate Organization website
- The official Advanced Placement Program website
- The "On Course for Success" report
- Booker T. Washington Alumni Association