New York City Wins Broad Prize for Urban Education - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog:
New York City’s Department of Education, the largest public school system in the country, won this year’s Broad Prize for Urban Education, a $500,000 award given to an urban school district that has made the greatest improvements in student achievement.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has made education reform a cornerstone of his time in office, accepted the award today at a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington. The prize is awarded each year by Eli Broad, a Los Angeles philanthropist and founder of the Broad Foundation, which works to improve large school districts across the country.
“Today’s result demonstrates that New York City’s school reforms are raising achievement among our students, particularly minority students, to levels that weren’t considered possible just a few years ago,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement. “This award recognizes the hard work of the teachers, students and parents and acknowledges that we are heading in the right direction.”
The Broad Foundation has given millions of dollars in the last several years to the city’s school system to fund projects such as new charter schools, principal training programs and new systems to track student data.
The foundation cited the fact that New York City outperformed other large urban districts in the state on math and reading tests and showed greater improvement at all grade levels. Low-income, black and Latino students also showed more improvement than their peers, according to the foundation.
“If it can be done in New York City, it can be done anywhere,” Mr. Broad said. “The strong leadership by the mayor, the chancellor and a progressive teachers union has allowed a school system the size of New York City to dramatically improve student achievement in a relatively short period of time.”
But the prize will likely do little to quiet critics of the mayor and Chancellor Joel I. Klein. Just minutes after the prize was announced, Betsy Gotbaum, the public advocate, put out this statement:
Here’s the reality: New York City still maintains dismally low graduation rates, especially for black and Latino students, and the D.O.E. has failed to engage parents. If we are number one in terms of achievement, it’s pretty sad news for the rest of the nation.
New York City was a finalist for the prize in 2005 and 2006 and finally won this year. The city’s Department of Education will receive $500,000 in college scholarships. The four finalists this year — the Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, the Long Beach Unified School District in California, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio — will each receive $125,000 in college scholarships.
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