Montgomery County Public Schools received $250,000 from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation for its efforts in closing the system’s “achievement gap,” losing out on the $1 million prize to Georgia’s Gwinnett County.
The Broad Prize in Urban Education honored five districts for progress toward closing the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers. Each finalist received $250,000.
The announcement was made Tuesday morning at a ceremony in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Unemployment is high. We’re coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression,” said Eli Broad, former CEO of SunAmerica. “But if we dramatically improve public education, we will have the citizenry and workforce that can address and even fix these major problems.”
Montgomery’s winnings will go toward college scholarships for the graduating class of 2011.
Superintendent Jerry Weast congratulated Gwinnett’s schools chief, J. Alvin Wilbanks, the only superintendent of a large school district to claim a longer tenure than Weast’s 11 years in office. “Persistence and consistency are an important part of a successful school district,” Weast said.
“I’m very hopeful that we will have a chance to compete for the Broad Prize again next year,” said Weast, who will leave at the end of the year.
Earlier this year, the Broad Foundation contributed $10 million to D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s pay-for-performance teacher bonus plan.
