HispanicBusiness

Much ink is spilled over the failure of inner city schools to adequately educate their students, but scant attention is paid to the paragons.

The Broad Prize for Urban Education, widely considered public education's Nobel Prize, attempts to remedy this phenomenon by spotlighting the inner-city schools that shine.

This year's winner will be announced Wednesday. The five finalists are Long Beach Unified School District in California; Socorro Independent School District and Aldine Independent School District in Texas; Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia; and Broward County Public Schools in Florida.

The award recognizes schools serving poor and minority students showing the most improvement in math and reading.

At the schools of this year's finalist districts, Hispanic, black and low-income students are graduating at higher rates, signing up for more rigorous coursework and taking more college-entrance exams such as the ACT and SAT than elsewhere around the country.

For instance, Florida's Broward district -- the sixth largest district in the nation -- was selected for the extent to which it closed the achievement gap separating the test scores of white and minority students, according to the Miami Herald.

The districts are culled from the 100 largest districts in the country. Finalists each receive $250,000 for student scholarships, and the winner receives $1 million. These prizes are especially welcome during this time of economic distress. At Broward, for instance, the entire operating budget dwindled in one year from $5 billion to $3.58 billion.

The jury is made up of former U.S. education secretaries, governors and university presidents.