The Long Beach Unified School District won the $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education on Monday, the largest national education award.

The district received the award from The Broad Foundation at a ceremony in New York, beating four other large urban school districts for the prize.

The award, which some educators equate to the Nobel Prize, honors districts for narrowing the performance gap between students of different ethnic and economic backgrounds.

News of the prize, which will be used for college scholarships, evoked cheers from a contingent of Long Beach officials who attended the ceremony. At LBUSD campuses where judges visited earlier this year, the announcement was also met with cheers, and high fives in the hallways.

District officials said the award culminates years of effort to adapt LBUSD's curriculum and approach to meet the needs of perhaps the nation's most ethnically and economically diverse student body.

"Just to get there is a huge honor,' said LBUSD Superintendent Chris Steinhauser, who accepted the award in New York. "But to be named the top district in the nation is a dream come true.'

The money will be used to provide graduating high school seniors with college scholarships and other post-secondary education. Steinhauser estimated that 50 to 55 seniors will receive the scholarships at the end of the school year. The district also hopes to secure matching funds through its own foundation to increase that number.

"It will not go to the top students who are going to get scholarships anyway,' said LBUSD Board President Bobbie Smith, who also attended the announcement. "But it's going to go to those kids who will probably not (otherwise) receive a scholarship.'

The Broad Prize recognizes urban school districts that have made the greatest overall strides while reducing achievement gaps across ethnic groups and between high- and low-income students. The award is designed to create incentives for urban schools to increase student academic performance. It also aims to boost people's confidence in the nation's public schools.

Los Angeles-based The Broad Foundation is named for philanthropist Eli Broad and his wife, Edyth.

A selection panel of 12 national leaders in education, government, business and nonprofit interests chose the winner. The panel included Boeing Co. CEO Phil Condit, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Evaluation teams visited the district in June to judge the district's programs.

Judges said they were impressed with LBUSD's student performance compared with other similar districts, said Stacie Spector, a spokeswoman for The Broad Foundation. Judges also looked at strides made by students among different ethnic and income groups. The district's ability to develop programs with clear objectives for state and grade levels also swayed the judges, Spector said.

In addition, the district showed a strong ability to evaluate and change its programs to meet the needs of specific students.

"It seems like they're pretty quick on their feet to adapt,' Spector said.

Cheers ring

LBUSD beat school districts in Garden Grove, Boston, Louisville, Ky., and Norfolk, Va., for the top prize. Those finalists received $125,000 each. More than 100 school districts were eligible for the award.

The Houston Independent School District won last year's top prize, which was the inaugural Broad award. LBUSD was a finalist for the 2002 award and gave out 14 scholarships with its prize money.

Monday's announcement was made at Rockefeller Center. Long Beach officials in attendance included Steinhauser, former LBUSD Superintendent Carl Cohn, school board members Smith, Suja Lowenthal and Jim Choura, Teachers Association of Long Beach President Tony Diaz and Mayor Beverly O'Neill. U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein also attended the announcement.

The Long Beach contingent screamed with excitement when the winner was announced, O'Neill said. Smith said she "lost all my sophistication and cool' when LBUSD's name was read.

At LBUSD's administration building, the "Martinelli's was flowing,' district spokesman Dick Van Der Laan said. A sign proclaiming "America's Best Urban Schools' was also put up at the building.

"It's euphoric around here,' Van Der Laan said. "Everyone has just worked their hearts out.'

On the district's campuses, news of the award traveled fast.

"I made an announcement over the intercom and I'm not lying, I heard people scream,' said Alex Flores, co-principal at Wilson Classical High School, which Broad judges visited earlier this year. "By the time I walked out to my lunch duty, about six teachers had given me high-fives.'

'Double' classes

At Hill Classical Middle School, Principal Kristi Kahl first heard about the award from the school's mailman, who had heard the announcement on the radio.

Hill was another school that Broad judges visited.

Among the programs the judges reviewed was the school's "double blocking' program, which gives under-achieving students twice the regular instruction in specific reading and math courses. For those students who need extra instruction, the program replaces electives with an added period of reading or math, thus "doubling' the teaching time. About one-third of the school's 325 eighth-graders receive double the math, algebra, reading or English courses.

The program has proved to be a success, Kahl said.

The judging at Hill was thorough, she said, including four days of interviews with teachers, classroom observations and hundreds of documents that administrators had to provide to prove results from various programs.

"They were interested in everything,' she said.

Judges also visited Tucker Elementary School.

While the district will receive the money for scholarships, the actual prize is a bronze statue that will be presented to the school board at a future meeting, Steinhauser said. The statue itself is so heavy, Steinhauser said, district officials could not carry it on their flight home Monday.