The Nobel Prize for Education

It was Monday morning in Brownsville, Texas, and the air blew cool as students at Porter High School hurried to class. They don’t push or shove or even talk real loud. They seem to have manners. One student says to me, “hello, sir.” Over the course of my visit, I notice that teachers, security staff, and cafeteria workers are addressed this way too.

“It’s a requirement in my class,” says economics teacher, George Borrego. “It’s a courtesy we don’t want to lose.”

Porter is part of the Brownsville Independent School District (BISD), the southernmost district in the state. It’s a warm and folksy town that shares a border crossing with Matamoros, Mexico.

You don’t hear much about Brownsville and its 160,000 residents. Most talk concerning Texas centers on activities in Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.

But that will change, at least within education circles. Last week, a group of national education experts were in town evaluating BISD for the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education.

“What’s going on here in Brownsville is something the rest of the country should know about,” Broad Foundation spokeswoman Erica Lepping said at a news conference.

Lepping announced that BISD is among five school districts in the nation that have been chosen as finalists for the Broad (rhymes with “road”) Prize, which honors urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among ethnic groups and between high-and low-income students.

The winner of the prize will be announced in October and receive $500,000 in scholarships for graduating seniors. The four finalists will each receive $125,000 in scholarships.

This year, 100 of the largest urban school districts nationwide were eligible for the award. The five finalists were selected by a review board of 19 prominent education policy leaders, practitioners and executives from leading universities, and think tanks.

Brownsville was chosen as a finalist for many reasons. For example, in 2007, BISD outperformed other Texas districts serving students with similar income levels in reading and math at all grade levels, according to Broad prize methodology.

The Broad Prize is sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize for education because school districts can’t be nominated and can’t apply for the award. The selection process is managed by an education research consulting firm, MPR Associates.

Another firm, SchoolWorks, evaluates a district’s performance by visiting the site with a team of researchers and practitioners. They conduct interviews, collect documents and analyze district practices.

Whether BISD wins the top prize in October or not, the students and educators who I met at Porter on a warm and breezy spring day will always be tops in my book.