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The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems Announces 2008 Broad Residency Class

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 September 2008, 09:00 CDT

Thirty-one emerging executives with top business, public policy and law school degrees 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 that 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.

Broad Residents in this new class all have M.B.A.s or other advanced degrees. Most come from leading business, public policy and law schools such as Harvard, Kellogg or Columbia and have a minimum of four years of distinguished work experience. Participants in this class will be working in 17 school districts and four charter management organizations across the country.

"Broad Residents are bringing effective operational practices, like budgeting and technology to the management of urban education in cities across America," said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which funds The Broad Residency. "As their work frees up critical dollars that can be used for teaching and learning, our students and teachers have far more opportunities to succeed."

The 2008-2010 Residents will be working in the following school districts:

-- Baltimore City Public Schools

-- Charleston County School District, S.C.

-- Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools, N.C.

-- Chicago Public Schools

-- Denver Public Schools, Colo.

-- District of Columbia Public Schools

-- Fulton County Schools, Ga.

-- Hartford Public Schools, Conn.

-- New York City Department of Education

-- Oakland Unified School District, Calif.

-- Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District collaboration

-- Pittsburgh Public Schools

-- Pomona Unified School District, Calif.

-- Portland Public Schools, Ore.

-- Prince George's County Public Schools, Md.

-- San Francisco Unified School District

-- Seattle Public Schools

In addition, 2008-2010 Residents will work in the following charter school management organizations:

-- Achievement First, in New Haven, Conn. and Brooklyn, N.Y.

-- DC Prep in Washington, D.C.

-- Envision Schools in San Francisco

-- KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program): KIPP Foundation, Chicago, KIPP Houston, KIPP New Orleans and TEAM Schools, KIPP in Newark, N.J.

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 31 Residents, nine 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.

The Broad Residency, now it its sixth year, continues to be more selective - at 5 percent - than the highest-rated M.B.A. programs. Demand from school districts and charter management organizations to receive Broad Residents also continues to grow. This year, 45 school districts and charter management organizations applied to receive a total of 81 Residents, more than twice as many as were available.

Current and former Broad Residents today are working in 29 urban school systems nationwide. Nine out of ten graduates today still work in urban education. Among Broad Residents' accomplishments:

-- Secured over $32 million in grant support

-- Doubled the number of ready-to-hire teachers in critical areas: math, reading and science

-- Saved $2.2 million over 10 years by reducing textbook replacement and shipping costs

-- Developed first strategic plan to be approved by the board of education in eight years

-- Reduced cycle time for textbook purchasing by three months, assuring that schools now receive 98 percent of textbooks before the start-of-school

-- Increased human resource customer satisfaction from 17 percent to 98 percent in two years

-- Decreased new hire process time from two weeks to four days

-- Saved $3 million per classroom by decreasing materials costs on 23 classrooms

-- Increased new hire applications by 37 percent in one year through proactive marketing efforts

-- Reduced average school system vacancies by 68 percent

-- Saved $1.9 million through contract negotiations and by issuing competitive requests for proposals

The Broad Center partners with urban school districts to improve student achievement and close income and ethnic achievement gaps. Residents report to superintendents or other top district executives and 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 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 Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (www.broadfoundation.org), 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.

Source: Business Wire

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