For the fourth time, the Aldine, Texas, school district has been named a finalist for a prestigious prize that recognizes the progress that urban districts are making in improving student achievement.
The announcement today by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation of the five finalists for the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education also includes the Broward County, Fla., school district, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale; the Gwinnett County, Ga., school district, outside Atlanta; the Long Beach, Calif., district; and the Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas.
The districts, which serve significant percentages of low-income and minority students, all made notable gains in reducing the achievement gaps between white students and their black and Hispanic peers, the Los Angeles-based foundation said in a news release.
Eli Broad, the founder of the foundation, said the nominees “stand as a beacon for other urban districts facing similar challenges and are exemplars of practices that can be replicated elsewhere across the country to improve our public schools.”
The winner of the Broad Prize, to be announced Sept. 16 in Washington, will receive $1 million in scholarships for high school seniors who graduate in 2010. The other four districts will each receive $250,000 in scholarships.
