Eli Broad.
A Los Angeles billionaire known for his promotion of charter schools has set up Yale’s School of Management (SOM) to “reimagine” how America’s public schools are run.
The billionaire, Eli Broad, has given SOM $100 million to establish “The Broad Center.”
It is the largest gift in SOM’s history.
The center will offer a one-year “tuition-free master’s degree program for emerging education leaders, advanced leadership training for top school system executives, and an extensive research endeavor aimed at assembling the premier collection of data on public education leadership,” according to a release Yale issued Thursday afternoon to announce the gift.
The center will also host a tuition-free “advanced executive training program” for school district superintendents and CFOs. The two programs will train 50 people a year.
“Those outside our community may be surprised to see a business school dedicate a major program to public education,” SOM Dean Kerwin K. Charles noted in the release, “but this is exactly the type of issue our school has always cared about — one where leadership informed by systemic thinking, rigorous analysis, and compassion can make a real difference for communities. We share this core vision with The Broad Foundation, and I am excited to see how the strengths of this school and the strengths of The Broad Center can combine to help us realize it.” Click here to read the full release.
Broad’s personal net worth has been estimated at $7.4 billion, built from his work as founder and chairman of SunAmerica Inc. and Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation. A prominent Democratic Party funder, He has donated millions of dollars to support the charter school movement, including $1.9 million to elect a pro-charter majority to LA’s school board. He started a Broad Superintendents Academy in 2002 “to recruit leaders from outside of the education sphere and train them to use corporate strategies to manage urban public school districts.” The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has also supported the growth of the New Haven-based Achievement First charter schools.