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The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems Announces 2007 Residency Class

Posted on: Thursday, 2 August 2007, 09:18 CDT

Thirty emerging executives from top business, public policy and law schools have been chosen to become leaders in urban school systems as part of The Broad Residency in Urban Education program, The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems announced today.

The Broad Residency is a management development program that places talented early career executives from the private or civic sectors into two-year, full-time, paid positions at the top levels of urban school systems across the country. "Broad Residents" work to improve management practices of urban education systems so critical resources can be pushed down to the classroom. During their two-year Residency, participants receive intensive professional development and access to a nationwide network of education leaders.

The new class of Broad Residents all have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees. Most come from leading business, public policy and law schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton and Columbia Law and have a minimum of four years of work experience. They will be working in 11 school districts and eight charter management organizations across the country.

"Broad Residents are integral to some of the most important change initiatives happening today in urban education nationwide," said Eli Broad, founder of The Broad Foundation, which funds The Broad Residency. "These talented individuals, who could be working in any industry they choose, can be proud they have chosen to work on the most important civil rights issue of our time."

The 2007-2009 Residents will be working in the following school districts:

Boston Public Schools

Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools in North Carolina

Chicago Public Schools

Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut

Houston Independent School District

Jacksonville-Duval County Public Schools in Florida

Long Beach Unified School District in California

New York City Department of Education

Pittsburgh Public Schools

Portland Public Schools in Oregon

Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland

In addition, the 2007-2009 Residents will also be working in the following charter school management organizations:

Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools in Los Angeles

Aspire Public Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area

Edison Schools in Dayton, Ohio

Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles

Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C. and New York

Partnership to Uplift Communities in Los Angeles

Uncommon Schools, Inc. in New York

Victory Schools in New York

The Broad Center pays 50 percent of each Resident's salary, with the school district or charter management organization paying the balance. Of this year's 30 Residents, seven are already working in school districts or charter management organizations, and their full salaries will continue to be paid by their organizations. The Broad Center also covers the full cost of professional development sessions for all Residents.

Demand to participate in The Broad Residency has grown dramatically since last year. The number of individuals expressing interest in applying nearly doubled from more than 700 in 2006 to more than 1,300 in 2007. Only five percent of this year's applicants were selected into the program, making it more selective than the highest-rated M.B.A. programs.

Current and former Broad Residents are working in over 35 urban school systems nationwide. Nearly all of the Broad Resident graduates -- 94 percent -- still work in urban education. Broad Residents have accomplished results such as:

Developed sound financial policies, procedures, and controls for a district with poor audits, resulting in five consecutive years of clean audits

Transformed a highly criticized, dysfunctional district human resources department into the highest-ranked district department, based on a customer service survey of principals

Removed a third of teachers with more than one unsatisfactory rating from the classroom

Managed a charter organization's growth from three to 500 employees

Secured $24 million from a local university for a school modernization project

Filled more than 41,000 substitute teacher days

The Broad Center partners with urban school districts striving to improve student achievement and close income and ethnic achievement gaps. Residents, who report to superintendents or other top district executives, are tasked with advancing significant change initiatives, such as creating new schools, improving human resource management, overhauling district budgeting processes or rolling out major technology systems. In many cases, Residents are paired with superintendents who have attended the Residency's sister program, The Broad Superintendents Academy, a ten-month executive management program to train working CEOs and other top business, non-profit, military, government and education executives as urban superintendents.

During the course of their Residency, participants attend eight intensive executive education sessions around the country that include case studies on successful management practices in urban school systems and innovative educational initiatives. For a list of this year's Broad Residents, their bios and more information about The Broad Residency, please visit www.broadresidency.org.

The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems is funded by The Broad Foundation (www.broadfoundation.org), a Los Angeles-based venture philanthropic organization established in 1999 by Eli and Edythe Broad. The Foundation's mission is to dramatically improve K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.

Source: Business Wire

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