City's Leadership Academy Secures Public Contract

A principal training program that was opened as a privately funded nonprofit will continue its work for the next few years — this time financed by taxpayer funds.

The city Department of Education announced this spring that it would make a publicly financed program out of services that the nonprofit, called the Leadership Academy, had performed. But rather than hand a contract directly to the Leadership Academy, department officials opened its idea up to competitive bidding. Four vendors applied. And on Friday, the department announced the Leadership Academy had been selected.

A spokesman at the Department of Education reached yesterday did not disclose the names of the three other vendors that applied.

As a nonprofit, the Leadership Academy's services had cost just less than $10 million a year. In its announcement Friday, the Department of Education estimated that the training program would still cost $10 million a year as a taxpayer-financed body.

The contract is expected to last five years.

Following the leadership philosophy of business guru Jack Welch, the Leadership Academy has pushed about 70% of its graduates into principal positions in city schools.

Their results are mixed. Though several of the program's graduates have seen their schools get failing grades on Department of Education report cards, an analysis by the department found that, on average, the reading and math scores of graduates' students improve more after three years of experience than students of principals with the same experience level who did not attend the academy.