All Current Investments

ALBERT SHANKER’S BIOGRAPHY
http://www.amazon.com/Tough-Liberal-Shanker-Battles-Democracy/dp/0231134967
Called “a gripping portrait” by Publishers Weekly, “Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy, A Biography on the Extraordinary Accomplishments and Challenges of the Late Union Leader Albert Shanker” was released in 2007 with high acclaim. The Broad Foundation supported the efforts of Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, to research and write the book, now available for purchase on Amazon.com.

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
www.aft.org
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Innovation Fund promotes innovative and collaborative reform projects within AFT local unions throughout the country. The fund is partnering with local AFT affiliates to develop projects that build teacher capacity and close the achievement gap across the country. The Broad Foundation supports the creation of the fund’s business plan.

ASPIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
www.aspirepublicschools.org
Aspire Public Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization currently operating 21 successful public charter schools serving over 6,000 students in cities across California. Aspire Public Schools outperform comparable schools on California statewide achievement tests. Aspire plans to expand to 50 schools clustered in urban areas throughout California, and The Broad Foundation supports Aspire’s expansion to 16 schools in the Los Angeles area.

THE BROAD CENTER FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS
www.broadcenter.org
The mission of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems is to raise student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders. The Broad Center identifies talented leaders from education, business, the military, nonprofit organizations and government who have the passion, knowledge and skills to take on executive leadership roles in urban education. The Broad Center operates two leadership development programs: The Broad Superintendents Academy and The Broad Residency in Urban Education.

THE BROAD RESIDENCY IN URBAN EDUCATION
www.broadresidency.org
The Broad Residency in Urban Education is a two-year management development program that immediately places emerging, talented private sector leaders into full-time managerial positions—“medical style” residencies in urban school districts or charter management organizations throughout the country. The Residency is designed for individuals with an advanced degree (e.g. master’s, juris doctorate, Ph.D.), at least four years of work experience and a successful track record of leadership and/or management. Residents participate in a series of professional development sessions while working full-time in school district central offices on major projects such as leading district budgeting processes, improving the management of human resources and opening new schools.

THE BROAD SUPERINTENDENTS ACADEMY
www.broadacademy.org
Created in 2002, The Broad Superintendents Academy is a rigorous, ten-month executive management training program designed to prepare experienced leaders from business, education, military, government and nonprofit sectors with the critical skills needed to lead our nation’s largest urban school districts. The Broad Superintendents Academy, one of the most selective superintendent preparation programs in the country, and the only one that recruits non-educators, covers topics such as planning and leading systems change, improving student achievement, using data for decision-making and implementing best practices from the public and private sectors.

THE BROAD PRIZE FOR URBAN EDUCATION
www.broadprize.org
The Broad Prize for Urban Education is an annual $2 million award created to honor urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among ethnic groups and between non-low- and low-income students. The 2008 Broad Prize winner, Brownsville Independent School District on the Texas-Mexico border (www.bisd.us), was announced on Oct. 14 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The 2008 Broad Prize finalists were Aldine Independent School District, near Houston (www.aldine.k12.tx.us); Broward County Public Schools, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (www.browardschools.com); Long Beach Unified School District in California (www.lbusd.k12.ca.us); and Miami-Dade County Public Schools (www.dadeschools.net). Each year, the winning and finalist districts’ best instruction and management practices are showcased nationwide. 

The Broad Prize for Urban Education provides $1 million in college scholarships to graduating high school seniors in the winning district, as well as $250,000 in scholarships to students in each of the four finalist districts. Scholarships of $20,000 are awarded to students who enroll in four-year institutions, paid out over four years ($5,000 per year), and $5,000 scholarships are awarded to students who enroll in two-year institutions, paid out over two years ($2,500 per year). 

The 2009 Broad Prize winner will be announced on Sept. 16 in Washington, D.C. 

CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION
www.charterassociation.org
The Broad Foundation invests in the California Charter Schools (CCSA) Association’s efforts to serve public charter schools and their students in California. CCSA’s vision is that 10 percent of the student population in California will attend high-quality public charter schools by 2014. The foundation supports CCSA to help ensure that California’s largest districts comply with providing Proposition 39 quality facilities to public charter schools; and enable CCSA’s work to raise the quality of California’s public charter schools.

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS
www.americanprogress.org
The Broad Foundation supports the education program of the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and actions. With support from The Broad Foundation, the Center for American Progress is producing papers and policy briefs on topics ranging from expanded learning time, differential pay for principals and teachers, comparability in Title I funding, and national education standards. 

CENTER ON REINVENTING PUBLIC EDUCATION
www.crpe.org
Researchers at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), part of the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, have developed tools for comparing spending across schools. The Broad Foundation is funding these researchers to further propose how to use these tools to investigate expenditures for centrally managed programs. Working closely with school districts, the CRPE will carefully examine central office spending to determine actual per–unit cost of services provided by central office programs and to analyze how those dollars are being spent in schools and on students. The results of this project will be published in spring 2009.

CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG SCHOOLS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
www.cms.k12.nc.us
Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools (CMS) receives support from The Broad Foundation to establish performance management tools and processes at the teacher, school, learning community and district-wide levels. CMS will develop defined core metrics for the district as a whole, as well as for each school and individual at the school site. These metrics will be tracked using a “balanced score card,” which will pull data from a centralized data warehouse, and a clear system of rewards and consequences will be defined and implemented. Data on student, employee and school performance will be accurate and easily accessible, and schools and teachers will receive training on how to use these tools to improve their performance and, ultimately, student achievement. 

CHARTER SCHOOL GROWTH FUND
www.chartergrowthfund.org
The Broad Foundation supports the Charter School Growth Fund’s (CSGF) Revolving Facility Financing Fund, a $50 million loan pool available to charter schools for facility financing, one of the biggest barriers to growth for these schools. Loans through CSGF are provided at better rates and with faster turnarounds than these organizations could find on their own. The facilities fund is expected to provide between $100 million and $200 million in facilities financing to ventures through the refinancing of loans and the recycling of capital to new lenders over the fund’s 10-year lifetime. CSGF estimates that this fund will create upwards of 20,000 of seats for charter management organizations across the country.

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
http://www.hci.cps.k12.il.us/
The Broad Foundation supports Chicago Public Schools’ implementation of a human capital management system that will help the district support, attract and retain high-quality teachers, principals and other employees. The integrated, state-of-the-art software system will help the human resources department leverage quality data to drive decision-making, devote less time to non-value-added manual transactions and dedicate more time to strategic thinking, problem-solving and better service. In addition, the foundation has partnered with the district in launching a project focused on the district’s talent management systems, allowing for more timely and accurate predictions of principal vacancies, increase in the rigor of central office evaluations, and proactively identifying high-performers.

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
www.cps.k12.il.us
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) receives support from The Broad Foundation for the creation of performance data dashboards—information-rich data portals that will provide school leaders, regional superintendents and central office administrators with the critical data they need to evaluate performance and make informed decisions. CPS dashboards are interactive data reports that provide critical performance information in a public and accessible manner to all levels of the organization. The creation of the dashboards will push the culture of data-driven decision making to all levels of the organization. These dashboards are part of CPS’s overall efforts to create a top-quality performance management system that will affect all aspects of the district—including schools and central office.

CHILDREN’S SCHOLARSHIP FUND OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIPS
http://www.scholarshipfund.org/sccsf/index.html
The Children’s Scholarship Fund is a national organization offering tuition assistance for low-income students to attend private school. In recognition of the severe school facilities crisis facing the Los Angeles Unified School District, The Broad Foundation supports the efforts of the Southern California Children’s Scholarship Fund to provide private education access to low-income families as an alternative to overcrowded district schools.

CIVIC BUILDERS
www.civicbuilders.org
Civic Builders is a nonprofit charter facility developer in New York City that provides affordable facilities for high-quality charter schools. By assuming responsibility for building acquisition, design and construction activities, Civic Builders relieves charter schools of the burden of navigating the complex and competitive New York real estate marketplace, enabling school administrators to focus on operating schools. The Broad Foundation funding provides Civic Builders with necessary equity to purchase buildings that are, in turn, provided to charter schools under favorable financial conditions.

COUNCIL OF GREAT CITY SCHOOLS - STRATEGIC PLANNING SUPPORT
www.cgcs.org
The Broad Foundation supports efforts by superintendents and districts to evaluate their current operational or instructional processes and capacities for change. In conjunction with the Council of Great City Schools, The Broad Foundation provides strategic planning support to districts by bringing together practitioner-expert teams to intensively review one or more of the district’s operational or instructional areas. The practitioner-expert teams interview key district leaders, gather and analyze historical information and make strategic, research-based recommendations to the superintendent on how to best improve the district.

DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS PROFESSIONAL COMPENSATION SYSTEM
www.denverprocomp.org
Denver Public Schools designed and implemented an ambitious salary system to reward educators for demonstrating gains in student achievement. What began as a four-year pilot project, with full support of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA), has become a system-wide salary schedule known as “ProComp” that rewards high-performing teachers. In March 2004, the DCTA and the school board approved the systemic teacher compensation system. In November 2005, Denver voters approved a $25 million mill levy to fund the compensation system. To date, 1,700 DPS teachers—nearly half of the district’s teaching force—have opted in to the ProComp system. The Broad Foundation has supported the development and implementation of ProComp since the pilot phase.

DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
www.dpsk12.org
Denver Public Schools (DPS) receives support from The Broad Foundation for the development of a comprehensive performance management system for schools and the central office. This system will provide actionable data that will help DPS managers improve the quality of instruction and the allocation of resources throughout the district.  The system also seeks to transform the district’s culture of entitlement to one of performance by setting targets for all employees and holding them accountable for their performance. 

EDUCATION PIONEERS
www.educationpioneers.org
The Broad Foundation supports the expansion of Education Pioneers, a nonprofit that recruits, trains and places top graduate students from leading business, law and public policy programs in summer positions in urban school districts, educational nonprofits and charter management organizations in five cities across the country. Education Pioneers’ goal is to develop a national corps of leaders committed to reforming urban public education. With The Broad Foundation’s support, Education Pioneers will have expanded its class size to almost 225 Fellows for the summer of 2009 and will expand to additional cities nationwide.

EDUCATION WEEK
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/nation-at-risk-25-years/index.html
The Broad Foundation is proud to sponsor a 2008-2009 series in Education Week reporting on the state of American education a quarter century after the release of the landmark education policy report, “A Nation at Risk.”  Education Week explores the complex realities of the current education landscape given today’s global economy and takes a look at where American public education is headed.

EXCELLENT EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT
www.exed.net
Excellent Education Development (ExED) was awarded New Market Tax Credits from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to be used for the development of public charter school facilities in Los Angeles County. These tax credits, coupled with grant funds, allow ExED to provide below market-rate loans for charter school operators. With The Broad Foundation’s support, five charter schools will receive facility support.

GREEN DOT PUBLIC SCHOOLS
www.greendotpublicschools.org
Green Dot Public Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization currently operating 12 public charter high schools serving more than 4,000 students in the Los Angeles area. Green Dot’s public charter schools consistently outperform comparable schools on California statewide achievement tests and have significantly higher graduation and college-going rates. Green Dot plans to expand to 31 schools serving more than 16,000 students by 2012. In addition, The Broad Foundation is supporting the launch of Green Dot’s newest school in New York, in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers.

GWINNETT COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS QUALITY LEADER PLUS PROGRAM
http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/gcps-mainweb01.nsf
The Broad Foundation funds Gwinnett County Public Schools’ Quality Leader Plus Program to identify, train and support new principals in Georgia’s largest district, just north of Atlanta. Teachers with the necessary leadership credentials are recruited for assistant principal positions and supported with training over a two-year period. One of the most promising innovations is Gwinnett’s partnership agreement with Teach For America (TFA) to commit to placing specific numbers of TFA alumni in the Atlanta area as principals in the coming years.  

HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDUCATION INNOVATION LABORATORY
www.edlabs.harvard.edu
The Broad Foundation supports the Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University (“EdLabs”). In a groundbreaking effort led by Harvard University professor Roland Fryer (who, at age 30, was the youngest African-American to receive tenure at Harvard), EdLabs applies the R&D model to public education reform to unearth the causes of performance gaps and effectively vet options for reform. With a theory of change rooted in the scientific method, EdLabs operates with the belief that most public education reform is missing not only in-depth empirical research to understand problems and challenges, but also research-driven solutions to determine what works, and then to effectively replicate what works and disseminate results.  

HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
The Broad Foundation supports efforts to bring first-rate opportunities in arts education to Los Angeles students through a world-class high school for the visual and performing arts. The foundation’s investment supports “Discovering the Arts,” a board of community leaders that has partnered with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to create and support the arts high school, Central High School #9 in downtown Los Angeles. Discovering the Arts believes that by drawing on the experience, networks, creativity and energy of the board’s artists and community leaders, the arts high school will become not only a vital neighborhood and citywide resource but also a preeminent public arts school in the country. The Broad Foundation’s investment supports Discovering the Arts’ efforts to help the district hire an executive director, assist with construction costs and supplement the school’s operational budget.

HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT PAY FOR PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
www.houstonisd.org
The Houston Independent School District has implemented the nation’s most comprehensive pay for performance program for teachers, administrators and other school-based personnel. The program rewards educators based on their ability to improve student achievement on state proficiency tests. This program is at the core of the district strategy to focus the entire district on driving achievement gains. Since the program’s inception, the district has outpaced comparable districts and the state in improving student achievement. The program is supported by The Broad Foundation and a federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant.

THE HUNT INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICY
www.hunt-institute.org
The Broad Foundation co-sponsors the Hunt Institute’s invitation-only Governors Education Symposia. During the symposia, governors participate in sessions with leading education, policy and business experts and discuss a wide range of education reform efforts.

ICEF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
www.icefla.org
Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF) Public Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization currently operating 13 schools with over 3,000 students in the Los Angeles area. ICEF’s mission is to transform South Los Angeles into a stable, economically vibrant community by providing first-rate educational opportunities for the students. ICEF provides schools that are results-oriented, run a longer school day and year, and focus on college standards so that all students are ready for college entrance.  The Broad Foundation provides support to build a robust home office to assist school growth, ensuring the possibility of strong school openings.

KIPP FISHER FELLOWS PROGRAM
www.kipp.org
The Broad Foundation supports the KIPP Fisher Fellows program, one of the most highly competitive charter leadership programs in the country, which trains future leaders to open schools in large urban districts across the country.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER PROGRAM (KIPP)
www.kipp.org
The Broad Foundation is a major supporter of KIPP public charter schools, universally recognized for their high-quality, rigorous curriculum and for providing an excellent education to underserved students. The Broad Foundation supports KIPP’s expansion from two to 14 Los Angeles schools and currently supports five new KIPP schools in New Orleans.

LA’S BEST AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
www.lasbest.org
The nationally acclaimed Los Angeles-based after-school program LA’s BEST (Los Angeles’ Better Educated Students for Tomorrow) provides academic and social enrichment activities for elementary students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Over the past several years, The Broad Foundation has actively supported this exceptional program, making investments in the organization’s expansion, operations and after-school arts activities.

LONG BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT ASPIRING PRINCIPALS
http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/
The Broad Foundation funds Long Beach Unified School District’s (Calif.) Aspiring Principal Cohort program, which recruits high-performing teachers with administrator certification, provides them with district-led training and coaching, and places them as assistant principals first and then as principals. Foundation funding has allowed the district to expand its pilot program launched in 2007 and add a year-long apprenticeship for participants. The expanded program, called the Aspiring Principals Apprentice Cohort, will be the source of 50 percent of new principals in the district by the fall of 2008.

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAM
www.educ.msu.edu/broadpartnership/
The Broad Foundation is the major supporter of a scholarship program to encourage highly talented graduates of Detroit Public Schools to attend Michigan State University’s five-year teacher preparation program. Students who accept the scholarship commit to teach in Detroit Public Schools upon completion of the program.

NATIONAL CENTER ON TIME & LEARNING
www.timeandlearning.org
Massachusetts 2020 is a statewide organization devoted to redesigning the conventional public school day to incorporate additional time for core academics, enrichment and professional development for teachers. With support from The Broad Foundation, Massachusetts 2020 expanded its focus to launch the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), which promotes expanded learning time in a national context. After pioneering the first state policy to support conversion to expanded learning time, the NCTL has spent the last year growing federal—as well as state and urban school district—interest in expanded learning time. Through a combination of high-level research and policy and ground-level technical assistance to schools, the NCTL is creating a new, more effective school day that expands learning opportunities for all students and prepares them for success in the 21st century global economy.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING
www.talentedteachers.org/
The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), implements the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) in school districts across the United States. The TAP program is a research-based school improvement effort to attract, retain and motivate teachers. The program consists of four key elements: multiple career paths; ongoing, applied professional development; instructionally-focused accountability; and performance-based compensation. The Broad Foundation supports the implementation of TAP in two large urban school districts: Chicago Public Schools and Minneapolis Public Schools.

NEW LEADERS FOR NEW SCHOOLS
www.nlns.org
The Broad Foundation supports New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), a bold effort to attract, prepare and support a new generation of outstanding principals for our nation’s urban public schools. The program combines an intensive summer training institute focused on management and instructional leadership strategies and a year-long, full-time “medical style” residency alongside an exemplary public or charter school principal. New Leaders for New Schools currently works with districts in Baltimore, Chicago, Memphis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Prince George’s County, Md. and Washington, D.C. Both Time magazine and Fast Company magazine have recognized NLNS for its entrepreneurial and innovative approach to improving public education.

NEW ORLEANS:  DEVELOPING A SYSTEM OF HIGH-QUALITY SCHOOLS
www.newschoolsforneworleans.org
www.teachforamerica.org
www.nlns.org
www.kipp.org
The Broad Foundation supports efforts by a set of leading education organizations—New Schools for New Orleans, Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools and KIPP—to transform public education in New Orleans. These organizations are working in partnership with Louisiana’s Recovery School District to recruit and train high-quality teachers and school leaders and to create new, innovative, high-quality public schools. In addition, the foundation supports the Recovery School District’s efforts to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve public education for students in New Orleans and across the state, including a statewide model to attract, retain and support high quality educational professionals in Louisiana.

NEW SCHOOLS VENTURE FUND
www.newschools.org
The New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF) receives support from The Broad Foundation to invest in the incubation and development of high-quality nonprofit public charter school management organizations across the country. NSVF seeks to accelerate the pace and quality of public charter school growth by supporting the building of accountable, sustainable schools that provide quality public education opportunities for children, families and entrepreneurial educators. By 2015, NSVF expects these newly established charter school management organizations to create over 450 schools serving more than 212,000 students.  

NEW YORK CITY FUND FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS “KEEP IT GOING” CAMPAIGN
http://keepitgoingnyc.org/
The Fund for Public Schools launched a public awareness initiative called “Keep It Going NYC,” which informs New Yorkers about the progress of New York City Department of Education schools and encourages everyone to join together to keep the progress going. Collaborating with leading education advocates and community organizations across the city, Keep It Going NYC provides families with tools and resources that support their children’s education and gives New Yorkers information about how they can get involved. The Broad Foundation joins with other local funders to support this important work.

NEW YORK CITY SCHOOL-WIDE BONUS PROGRAM
www.nycenet.edu
The Broad Foundation supports the New York City Department of Education’s school-wide performance bonus program. The program is a groundbreaking initiative that allows educators at a select group of high-need schools in New York City to receive monetary bonuses if their schools meet specific performance targets. Of the 201 high need schools who were invited to participate in the bonus program, 197 elected to do so.

NEW YORK CITY STUDENT INCENTIVES
http://schools.nyc.gov/default.aspx
www.nber.org
The Broad Foundation supports an incentives program through the National Bureau of Economic Research for fourth and seventh graders in approximately 40 New York City Department of Education schools. This initiative offers a new strategy for engaging students and fostering academic achievement through financial incentives. In addition to funding the incentives themselves, the grant will provide funds to perform critical research on the effectiveness of student incentives in closing achievement gaps in urban school systems like New York City.

OAKLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT TRANSFORMATION
http://webportal.ousd.k12.ca.us
Oakland Unified School District is undergoing significant organizational transformation to further improve student achievement. The transformation includes two key elements: (1) moving to create a set of new, smaller, more autonomous schools and (2) developing a new district operating model that complements this strategy. The district, with support from The Broad Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and several local funders, has developed a much leaner and customer-service focused central office that devolves responsibility and greater budget authority to schools and uses a fee-for-service model to provide services to schools. The project is funding dramatic changes in district and school leadership, school creation and closure, technology systems, organizational redesign, and outreach and communications—all to drive improvements in student achievement.

PACIFIC CHARTER SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT
www.pacificcharter.org
Pacific Charter School Development (PSCD) identifies, acquires and develops public charter school facilities that will, in turn, be leased back to academically successful charter school organizations. PCSD provides public charter schools with high-quality, low-cost facility options and gives lenders a less risky alternative to individual school financing. Over the past three years, PCSD has helped develop 8,000 new seats for the highest performing charter schools serving low income students in Los Angeles.

PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS EMERGING LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
www.pghboe.net
The Broad Foundation is funding Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Emerging Leadership Academy (PELA), which is part of the district’s system of inter-related initiatives called PULSE. Designed to recruit, train, evaluate and retain high-quality school-level leadership, PULSE addresses the full spectrum of principal performance—from recruitment and selection to retention and evaluation. The district’s principal evaluation system is unique in that it formally identifies school-level and central office accountability for performance and, through the pay for performance system, rewards excellent performance.  

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
www.pgcps.org
Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) receives support from The Broad Foundation to develop a performance management system. PGCPS, with the Parthenon Group, conducted a diagnostic of where the district stood in terms of performance management and where it should focus next. The Broad Foundation supports PGCPS in the establishment of a data warehouse; monitoring a clear set of district metrics; monitoring the efficacy of initiatives; and creating rewards and consequences for performance and communications initiatives. 

SCHOOL DISTRICT GOVERNANCE TRAINING PROGRAMS
http://www.crss.org/tbisb.htm
In 2002, The Broad Foundation, in partnership with the Center for Reform of School Systems, created The Broad Institute for School Boards, a training and support program for newly elected and newly appointed urban school board members. Developed as an annual intensive one-week summer residential learning experience and modeled after the Harvard Kennedy School’s program for new mayors and new members of Congress, the Institute trained new board members to become effective policy and reform leaders in urban school systems. An Alumni Institute was also established under the umbrella of The Broad Institute to provide Broad Institute Fellows still serving as school board members the opportunity to advance their education as reform leaders.

The inaugural programs of The Broad Institute have evolved into the more intensive Reform Governance in Action (RGA), which is a long-term training and consulting program for selected large urban school districts. The program is based on “Reform Governance®,” an innovative framework for school district transformation starting with the role and focus of the school board. The objective is to establish a high-performing school board/superintendent team that uses efficient and effective processes to develop, approve and implement major reform policies to directly improve student achievement and narrow the achievement gap. Participation in RGA is by invitation only and requires deep commitment to transformation-level reform by both the board and the superintendent.

STATE POLICY NETWORK
www.spn.org
The Broad Foundation supported the creation of six policy papers on performance-based and differential pay, as well as research showcasing events by State Policy Network members. Those members include: Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Cascade Policy Institute, John Locke Foundation, Pioneer Institute, Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the Maine Heritage Policy Center. These research papers will be published and showcasing events will be held in fall 2008.  

SUCCESS CHARTER NETWORK
www.successcharternetwork.org
Success Charter Network (SCN) is a Charter Management Organization with four schools serving the students of Harlem, N.Y. SCN operates K-5 elementary schools that provide a rigorous curriculum, a longer school day and year, and the appropriate supports so that all students can succeed. In addition to a commitment to running excellent schools, SCN is active in helping all parents advocate for high quality educational opportunities throughout New York City. SCN plans to open 30 to 40 new schools over the next decade.

TEACH FOR AMERICA
www.teachforamerica.org
The Broad Foundation is a major supporter of Teach For America’s efforts to broaden and deepen its growing teaching corps and alumni program in large urban school districts across the country. Teach For America corps members teach in schools in 29 regional sites. Since 1990, more than 20,000 corps members have committed to teach two years in low-income rural and urban communities. The Broad Foundation has committed funding to Teach For America’s 2006-2010 national growth plan, as well as investing in the expansion of Teach For America’s New Orleans corps.

THE THOMAS B. FORDHAM INSTITUTE
www.edexcellence.net/institute
The Broad Foundation is supporting a study that chronicles the experiences of seven countries with national education standards. This study will explore how these systems were built and identify lessons for the United States regarding the design and politics of implementing national education standards and the associated assessments. The results from this work will be published in mid-2009.

UNCOMMON SCHOOLS
www.uncommonschools.org
Uncommon Schools, Inc (USI) is a high-performing charter management organization made up of a five philosophically aligned charter networks that provide top-quality urban college preparatory schools in New York City, upstate New York and Newark, N.J. USI has achieved outstanding academic results predicated on their commitment to high standards for academics and character, data-driven decision making, a structured learning environment, and a longer school day and year. The Broad Foundation provides funding for the start up and scale of new USI schools in New York City.

UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS CHARTER SCHOOLS
www.uft.org/chapter/charter/
The Broad Foundation supports the start up of the United Federation of Teachers’ (UFT) first union-run charter schools in New York City. The UFT Elementary Charter School opened in fall 2005 to serve students from kindergarten through fifth grade. The UFT Secondary Charter School opened in fall 2006 to serve students from sixth through 12th grade.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO
http://education.uic.edu/index.cfm
Funded by The Broad Foundation, the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) Urban Education Leadership program has a dual purpose of (1) developing transformational school leaders for the most challenging schools in Chicago Public Schools (CPS)—high poverty, high-minority, historically low-performing schools—and (2) changing the way higher education prepares those school leaders. After a rigorous selection process, participants are enrolled as doctorate of education students for three years at UIC and placed in progressively more responsible positions in CPS, culminating with placement as a principal. The program also supports new principals through an extensive principals network.

WASHINGTON, D.C PUBLIC SCHOOLS DISTRICT TRANSFORMATION
www.k12.dc.us
The Broad Foundation supported two projects in the District of Columbia Public Schools to provide the foundation for the transformation of the district into a high-performing organization. The first was a fiscal audit to help balance the budget and identify opportunities to increase school-level funding. The second was a strategic planning effort to help the district successfully start the school year and build a foundation for a performance-oriented culture.