Investing Quick Millions for Long-Term Results

By Heather Zavadsky

Texas’ Aldine Independent School District, the winner of the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education , is the epitome of a well-aligned education system. It has outperformed its state for years—not just in one school or with one student group, but across the entire district. But to do this, Aldine has had to deal with the same set of challenges that often derail urban school systems elsewhere. Its success, and that of other exemplary urban districts, should offer food for thought to school reformers everywhere.

For four years, from 2003 to 2007, I reviewed the progress of school systems like Aldine as the project manager of the Broad Prize. In addition to rigorous collection and analysis of data from the 100 eligible urban districts, the process included careful scrutiny of the finalists and eventual winners to ensure that they were well-aligned, organized systems with high academic expectations for all their students. In a new book, Bringing School Reform to Scale , I have tried to capture the lessons that five of these Broad Prize winners, including Aldine, have to teach others.

Learning from these high-functioning urban school systems is more important now than ever, with the federal government preparing to spend billions of dollars in economic-stimulus funds—and requesting billions more in its fiscal 2011 budget—intended to advance school reform. The unprecedented outflow of dollars brings with it a sizable challenge: to spend funds quickly, yet in a way that will result in long-term...