Inside the ‘Long Beach Way’

The 2003 winner of a prestigious prize in urban education is in the running again, showing how a district can build on its reform efforts.

Regardless of whether the Long Beach Unified School District wins the Broad Prize for Urban Education this month, it has already set a standard for others to follow.

The district of more than 90,000 students is the first winner of the award to return to the competition as a finalist. Its reappearance on the list after earning the prize in 2003 raises interesting questions about how districts sustain and deepen school improvement over time.

Located in Southern California, adjacent to Los Angeles, Long Beach is a heavily industrialized port city with a student population that’s highly diverse. Under the leadership of former Superintendent Carl Cohn, who led the district from 1992 to 2002, Long Beach made impressive gains in its elementary and middle schools. During his tenure, the district adopted a standards-based curriculum-and-assessment system, forged a strong partnership with local colleges and universities, and enacted a mandatory school uniform policy in grades K-8. It also ended social promotion in key grades and required all students to be able to read by the...