Foundation Awards Aim to Boost Stature of Urban School Districts

Los Angeles billionaire businessman Eli Broad, a public school graduate, on Friday announced the creation of an annual $500,000 award meant to help rebuild confidence in urban public education by showcasing examples of success.

The prize will go toward college and technical scholarships for graduates of the big-city district that makes the greatest overall gains in student performance while also shrinking the persistent differences in achievement between minority students and their white counterparts. Broad also announced that his family would quadruple its stake to $400 million in the Broad Foundation, which is offering the annual prize. The foundation aims to improve the management skills of administrators, teachers union leaders and school boards in the belief that better leadership and labor relations will foster improved student achievement.

Listed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of the five most generous givers to charity in the U.S., Broad made the announcements at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., flanked by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige and high-ranking members of Congress.

“Just about everyone’s dissatisfied with public education, and while we keep reading about the failures, I hope this will spotlight success and get the public to believe that public schools can succeed,” Broad said.

In addition to the scholarship prize, the foundation also will pay for educators to visit the winning district and for the recipients to send people on the road to share the secrets of their success. The new prize would be among the most lucrative in the field of education and the only one to honor a district, rather than a distinguished individual.

Each year’s winner of the Broad Prize in Urban Education will be selected from a group of about 100 of the nation’s big urban districts, most of which serve large numbers of poor and minority students and have seen the flight of middle-class families.

A team of education leaders that includes the former superintendents of schools in New York, Philadelphia and Memphis; the heads of national education organizations; and the president of the American Federation of Teachers, will choose finalists by sifting through test scores, dropout and attendance statistics and information about teachers’ qualifications and performance. The final selection is to be made by a jury of business and political leaders.

In an interview, Paige said the aims of the Broad prize fit well with those of the Bush administration.

Corporate leaders have been strong supporters of the testing and accountability provisions of the administration strategy and have launched campaigns in many states to bolster political and community support.

Paige said public schools should “benefit the whole public, and the business community is part of the public.” He said Broad’s effort “transcends expedience” and described him as “just a good and moral person and a great corporate citizen.”

Broad, a child of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, graduated from Detroit’s Central High School and then from Michigan State University. He founded the home building business now known as KB Home in Detroit and now chairs SunAmerica Inc., a leading financial services company specializing in retirement savings.

A patron of the arts and an avid supporter of higher education, Broad has made major contributions to the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA and to other universities. He’s also leading an effort to make Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles a lively boulevard, and he was a leader of the campaign to raise money for the Walt Disney Concert Hall now under construction

Broad became involved in K-12 education in 1999 out of concern that changes in the economy and the labor market were widening the gap between rich and poor and threatening the existence of the nation’s middle class.

In addition to helping train superintendents, union leaders and school board members nationally, Broad’s foundation has funded leadership-related projects with the public schools in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, Long Beach and Sacramento.