The Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas has won $250,000 in Broad Prize college scholarships as a finalist for the nation’s most improved urban school district, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced on Wednesday, September 16.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined philanthropist Eli Broad and members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. today to announce that the Aldine Independent School District outside Houston won the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education award in the country.

The $2 million Broad (rhymes with “road”) Prize is an annual award that honors the five large urban school districts – out of the 100 largest – that demonstrate the strongest student achievement and improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic groups. The Broad Prize winner was selected by a bipartisan jury of eight prominent American leaders from government, education, business and civic sectors, including three former U.S. secretaries of education. The money goes directly to graduating high school seniors for college scholarships.

As a finalist for The Broad Prize, the Socorro Independent School District will receive $250,000 in college scholarships for graduating seniors next spring. The other finalists are Broward County Public Schools in southern Florida; Gwinnett County Public Schools outside Atlanta; and the Long Beach Unified School District in California. This was the first year that Socorro and Gwinnett were in the running for the award, the fourth for Aldine and the second for Broward. Long Beach won the award in 2003, and this was the third year it returned as a finalist.

“Socorro students, teachers, parents, administrators and the community deserve to celebrate today,” said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. “To be among the top five urban school districts in the nation is no easy feat. It’s the result of smart student-focused strategies and hard work on the part of the entire community.”

Among the reasons Socorro stood out this year among large urban school districts:

• Outperformed other similar Texas districts. In 2008, Socorro outperformed other districts in Texas that serve students with similar family income levels in reading and math at all school levels (elementary, middle, high school), according to The Broad Prize methodology. The district also showed greater improvement than other similar Texas districts between 2005 and 2008 in reading and math at all school levels.

• Demonstrated greater improvement by racial, ethnic and income subgroups. Between 2005 and 2008, Socorro was more successful than the state in increasing the percentage of all students—as well as low-income and Hispanic students measured separately—who achieved proficiency in reading and math at all school levels. For example, between 2005 and 2008, the percentage of Socorro’s low-income students who achieved proficiency in high school reading increased by an average of 7 percentage points each year, outpacing the state.

• Narrowed achievement gaps. Between 2005 and 2008, Socorro narrowed achievement gaps between Hispanic students and the state average for white students in reading and math at all school levels. In addition, Socorro narrowed achievement gaps between low-income students and the state average for non-low-income students in reading and math at all school levels. For example, the district narrowed the gap between low-income students and the state average for non-low-income students by 18 percentage points in middle school math.

• Demonstrated strong district-wide policies and practices. At the district level, Socorro predicts which students are at risk of dropping out of school, monitors them, makes sure they catch up academically and focuses on keeping them in school. Socorro also invests heavily in English language learners, shares instructional leadership between the schools and the central office, and utilizes a year-round academic calendar to minimize learning loss during long student breaks.

Each year, 100 of the largest urban school districts nationwide are automatically eligible for The Broad Prize. Districts cannot apply for or be nominated for this award. For a full electronic press kit, including additional student outcomes, policies and practices that earned Socorro its distinction as a Broad Prize finalist, please visit www.broadprize.org.
Because Socorro was a finalist for this year’s Broad Prize, its high school seniors who graduate in 2010 will be eligible for $250,000 in college scholarships. Broad Prize scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate significant financial need and show a record of academic improvement during their high school career. Scholarship recipients who enroll in four-year colleges will receive up to $20,000 paid out over four years ($5,000 per year). Broad Prize scholars who enroll in two-year colleges receive up to $5,000 scholarships paid out over two years ($2,500 per year). For more, visit: http://www.broadprize.org/scholarship_program/overview.html.

Previous Broad Prize winners include the Brownsville Independent School District, Texas (2008), the New York City Department of Education (2007), Boston Public Schools (2006), Norfolk Public Schools, Va. (2005), the Garden Grove Unified School District, Calif. (2004), the Long Beach Unified School District, Calif. (2003) and the Houston Independent School District (2002).
The selection jury that chose this year’s winner included:

• Henry Cisneros, chairman and CEO of CityView America, former president of Univision and former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development
• 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, executive vice president of the National Chamber Foundation and former U.S. secretary of education
• Andrew L. Stern, international president of Service Employees International Union

The selection jury evaluated publicly available student performance data compiled and analyzed by MPR Associates, Inc., a leading national education research consulting firm. In addition, the jury evaluated the five finalist districts’ policies and practices, based on site visits, interviews with administrators, teachers, principals, parents, community leaders, school board members and union representatives and classroom observations. The site visits were conducted by a team of education practitioners led by SchoolWorks, an education consulting company in Beverly, Mass.

Socorro was originally selected as a finalist by a review board of 20 prominent education researchers, policy leaders, practitioners and executives from leading universities, national education associations, think-tanks and foundations that evaluated publicly available student performance data.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a national venture philanthropy established by entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. The Broad Foundation’s education work is focused on dramatically improving urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition. The Broad Foundation’s Internet address is www.broadfoundation.org.