By Juliette Jardim
September 28, 2009

The Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation announced Aldine Independent School District (AISD) as the winner of the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education September 16. The Broad Prize, the largest education award in the country, awards $2 million in college scholarships annually to five large urban districts that show remarkable improvement in student achievement, while narrowing achievement gaps between ethnic and income groups at the school. The prize money goes directly to college scholarships for graduating high school seniors. Every year, 100 of the nation’s largest urban school districts are automatically eligible for The Broad Prize and districts cannot be nominated or apply for the award.

The Aldine Independent School District, located near Houston (TX) was awarded $1 million this Spring in the form of college scholarships for its graduating seniors. With 80 percent of Aldine’s students qualifying for reduced-price or free lunch, Aldine has been recognized as one of the top five most improved American urban school systems in four of the past six years, and has shown some of the most consistent student gains throughout the nation over the past decade.

“Aldine shows us that it’s possible for a district facing tough circumstances to get excellent results,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan after opening the envelope and announcing the winner. “We need to highlight the success of Aldine and districts like it so that others can follow their examples and lift up all students.”

According to the judges, Aldine stood out in several key areas including performance with respect to other similar Texas districts, superior performance by ethnic, racial and income subgroups, significant reduction in achievement gaps, an elimination of the predictive power of poverty (meaning achievement is just as likely in students attending low-income Aldine schools as it is in students attending non-low-income schools), and strong district-wide practices and policies.

The four finalists were Broward County Public Schools in southern Florida; Gwinnett County Public Schools outside Atlanta; the Long Beach Unified School District in California; and the Socorro Independent School District in Texas. Each of these districts will receive $250,000 in college scholarships. Long Beach won the Broad Prize in 2003, making it the third time that the former winner has returned the following year as a finalist. Broward is now a two-time finalist for the prize, while Socorro and Gwinnett are both first time finalists.

This year’s selection jury consisted of a number of leaders in education and former political figures including: Henry Cisneros, Chairman and CEO of CityView America, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former President of Univision; James B. Hunt, Jr., Chairman of the Board of the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy and former Governor of North Carolina; Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Roderick Paige, Chairman and Founder of Chartwell Education Group and former U.S. Secretary of Education; Richard W. Riley, former U.S. Secretary of Education and former Governor of South Carolina; Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Margaret Spellings, Vice President of the National Chamber Foundation and former U.S. Secretary of Education; and Andrew L. Stern, International President of Service Employees International Union.

This makes for the third time in eight years that a Texas district has been awarded the $1 million prize since the conception of the Broad Prize in 2002. Last year’s winner was the Brownsville Independent School District, and the Houston Independent School District won in 2002. Other previous winners include the New York City Department of Education (2007), Boston Public Schools (2006), Norfolk (VA) Public Schools (2005), the Garden Grove (CA) Unified School District (2004) and the Long Beach (CA) Unified School District (2003).

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, established by entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad, is a venture philanthropy created to advance entrepreneurship nationwide for the common good in science, education and the arts. The Broad Foundation’s focuses its education work on significant improvement in urban K-12 public education through better management, governance, competition and labor relations. For more information on the Broad foundation and the Broad prize for urban education, visit the website www.broadprize.org.