BROAD SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION BILLIONAIRE TO AWARD PRIZE FOR IMPROVED DISTRICT.

Byline: Bill Hillburg Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad gave urban school districts a half-million new reasons to raise student achievement as they announced on Friday an annual award of $500,000 to the nation's most improved system.

The first winner of the Broad Foundation's Broad Prize in Public Education will be chosen this summer from among 108 of the nation's largest urban systems. The money will be used to give college scholarships to the winning district's graduates.

``Improving public education is the most important civil rights issue of this century,'' said Broad, whose wealth was estimated at $5.2 billion by Forbes magazine this year. He was joined at a Capitol news conference by U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige and Sens. Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark.

``I come from a lower-middle-class family and I am the son of immigrants. I went to public schools (in Detroit) and they served me well,'' said Broad, who is chairman of SunAmerica Inc., a financial services company; and KB Home, a leading housing developer. ``I believe our public schools can and should be great opportunities for all of our children.''

Eligible locally are the Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, San Bernardino City, Garden Grove, Riverside, Fontana and Corona-Norco school districts.

Broad said improvement in test scores and other measurements and a closing of the performance gap between white and Latino and African- American students will be the major criteria for the award.

``The gap between the poor and the middle class is widening and only public schools can close that gap,'' he explained. ``In our new economy, middle-class manufacturing jobs are gone. Today you have service workers making low wages and knowledge workers who earn much more and will have much greater career opportunities.''

Paige agreed.

``The beauty of this award is in the preparation,'' said Paige, a former Houston school superintendent who in 2000 was among candidates courted for the LAUSD's top job by Broad and his close friend, former Mayor Richard Riordan.

``You're going to see every district competing hard and making improvements for a chance to win this prize,'' Paige said. ``I would have loved to have had this goal when I was in Houston.''

Participating districts will be initially evaluated by the National Center for Educational Accountability, a research center based at the University of Texas in Austin.

``We're going to be looking at data from a number of private and government sources,'' said Tom Luce, the NCEA's board chairman. ``There will be no self-reporting by the school systems.''

Based on the NCEA's recommendations, the winning district will be selected by a jury that includes former education secretaries Lamar Alexander and Richard Riley and Boeing Company Chairman Phil Condit.

Edythe Broad, also a product of Detroit's schools, called public education ``the backbone of our democracy.'' She said she and her husband wanted to create an incentive and form of recognition for K-12 public education that was on a par with the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.

In terms of dollars, the Broad Prize dwarfs the next highest award in education. The $25,000 McGraw Hill Publishing Award is given to individuals for their contributions to the field. This year's winners include Superintendent Carl Cohn of Long Beach Unified.

Eli Broad, who also announced on Friday that he had increased the endowment of the Broad Foundation from $100 million to $400 million, praised Cohn ``as a leader who has really gotten good results in Long Beach.'' The Broad Foundation, along with Boeing, is supporting school improvement programs in the LBUSD.

Eli Broad and his foundation have also been active in the LAUSD. The philanthropist was instrumental in the hiring of former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer as superintendent and has also donated funds for reading, enrichment and after-school programs.

Asked Friday whether his ventures in the LAUSD were getting results, Broad said, ``I'm seeing an improvement, but I wish it could move faster. I'm not a very patient man. Roy Romer has had only 15 months to deal with a host of problems in Los Angeles Unified. It took four decades to screw it up,'' he said.