One of the nation's poorest school districts, already tousled by a hurricane and nervously awaiting division by a fence being built along the U.S.-Mexican border, won the coveted $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education last week in recognition of its academic advances.
The prize will be divided among the district's graduating seniors for college scholarships.
'This is considered the Nobel Prize in education,' an elated Hector Gonzales, the district's superintendent, said by phone at the award presentation in New York. 'It will help us move to the next level where all our students succeed.'
Announcing the decision in New York, Eli Broad, founder of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said: 'Brownsville is the best kept secret in America. In the face of stark poverty, Brownsville is outpacing other large urban districts nationwide because it is smartly focusing all resources on directly supporting students and teachers.'
The Brownsville Independent School District serves nearly 50,000 students -- 98 percent Hispanic and 43 percent who are learning English. Ninety-four percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a common measure of poverty. Surrounding Cameron County had the highest poverty rate for a county of its size in the country at 34.7 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
