Boston Receives NSBA Urban School Board Excellence Award

The National School Boards Association's Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) today presented the Boston Public Schools with its first annual award for Urban School Board Excellence.

Boston Public Schools, as the winning district, will receive a $5,000 contribution to its student scholarship fund. Chula Vista Elementary School District in California and Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia have been awarded honorable mentions.

"We believe that the Boston School Committee will be an inspiration for all of our school boards -- those in cities, in the suburbs and in rural areas," said Anne L. Bryant, executive director, National School Boards Association. "The Boston leadership team -- the school committee and Superintendent Payzant -- has set district priorities and worked carefully to engage the community to help improve academic achievement for all students."

The award for Urban School Board Excellence is presented to the school district that best demonstrates excellence in four core areas -- board governance, closing the achievement gap, academic achievement and community engagement. The award, sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education, was presented to the Boston School Committee today at the school district's offices. It was also announced at the CUBE Award Conference in San Antonio last Saturday.

"We congratulate the Boston School Committee on receiving this first ever award and commend all of the finalists. All are stellar examples of school boards that have made important decisions that have improved student achievement in their districts. We believe it is important to recognize the commitment and dedication of school boards and salute CUBE for creating this award," said Dan Domenech, senior vice president of National Urban Markets for McGraw-Hill Education.

The CUBE award highlights the link between urban student achievement and successful board governance. The Boston School Committee and Superintendent Thomas Payzant have relied heavily on community input in developing the district's strategic plan -- Focus on Children. The plan provides clear direction regarding district goals, enhancing the superintendent's effectiveness in designing and executing new, data driven approaches to teaching and learning. As part of the plan, the district has focused on strengthening literacy and math while increasing academic standards and expectations for all students. Boston has established citywide learning standards in English, math, science and social studies.

The school committee has moved aggressively to improve academic achievement by investing more than $15 million to reduce class size, approving a new student promotion policy and developing a new accountability system to measure school and student progress.

In addition, Boston is reorganizing all of its secondary schools into smaller learning communities. Five years ago, the majority of 10th graders failed to meet state standards. Last fall, more than 64 percent of students passed the math exam and 70 percent passed the English test.

"The Boston School Committee leadership has been critical to raising student achievement, narrowing the achievement gap and bringing the community together in support of Boston's public schools," said David Thomas, school board member from Mobile, Alabama and chair, Council of Urban Boards of Education. "The Boston School Committee is an excellent example of the best in urban public school governance."

The chairperson of the school committee, Elizabeth Reilinger, has led the board for six years and Thomas Payzant has been the superintendent since 1995.

"By taking the time to reach consensus, the agenda in terms of priorities is really pre-defined," said Reilinger. "This has helped facilitate positive and productive work between board members and has helped us focus on system priorities and an educational agenda rather than personal priorities or political agendas."

The structure and clear division of roles also helps promote a collegial rather than adversarial approach to board-superintendent relations, according to Reilinger and Payzant.

The Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) is the urban initiative of the National School Boards Association. CUBE currently has 106 member districts, including the 10 largest school districts in the U.S., with an enrollment of more than nine million students. CUBE's mission is to create opportunities for urban school board leaders to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective policy makers and advocates for excellence and equity in public education.

The National School Boards Association is a national federation of state school boards associations that represent more than 95,000 school board members who govern the nation's public schools. The organization's mission is to foster excellence and equity in public elementary and secondary education throughout the United States through local school board leadership.

McGraw-Hill Education is a leading global provider of electronic and print products for the pre-K through 12th grade, higher education and professional markets. It is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, a global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor's and Business Week. Founded in 1888, the corporation has more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Additional information is available at McGraw-Hill Education.

SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Education

CONTACT: Linda Embrey
+1-703-838-6737
press@nsba.org

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