Leeds Global Partners works with governments, universities, school districts, and leading education institutions to improve student achievement and organizational effectiveness globally. The founders and leaders of Leeds Global draw on decades of on-the-ground experience and research expertise to implement proven, workable, and research-based strategies and to develop new, cutting-edge innovations that expand educational opportunities for children and adults across cultures, nationalities, and languages. Leeds Global provides a full range of advisory and implementation services from early childhood through secondary and tertiary education.
The principals and advisors of Leeds Global and our affiliated company Leeds Equity Partners bring decades of successful experience as educators, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and leaders of schools, public school systems, public and private universities, and corporations. Our areas of expertise include system reform and design, teacher and principal professional development, curriculum development, on-line and distance learning, new school creation, performance-driven oversight and accountability, labor relations and collective bargaining, and higher education governance, leadership, and administration.
Selected engagements include:
Abu Dhabi: Launching System-Wide Reforms
Leeds Global partnered with the Abu Dhabi Education Council to launch an ambitious reform agenda across 200 schools affecting 125,000 students. Leeds trained nearly 1,000 principals, vice principals, faculty heads and cluster managers on the core elements of the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s New School Model. Leeds developed original, bi-lingual training materials that are fully-customized to ADEC’s approach. The program included an original on-line platform that allowed participants throughout the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to share resources, ask questions, and provide support to each other throughout the first year of implementation. The program also included a strong accountability element to determine the extent to which schools and teachers were changing their practice.
Abu Dhabi: Redesigning Abu Dhabi’s Teacher Training College
Leeds Global conducted a comprehensive analysis of Emirates College for Advanced Education and made extensive recommendations on its redesign to align with the K-12 school system. Leeds also recruited several of the top-ranked schools of education in the United States to partner with the Abu Dhabi Education Council. As of October 2011, negotiations are in the final stages for a top-ranked American school of education to open in Abu Dhabi in 2014, offering degrees from Bachelor’s to Doctoral.
Bahrain: Raising the Quality of Higher Education
Leeds Global assisted Gulf University, a private university in the city of Manama, to achieve local and international accreditation. Leeds conducted an extensive investigation of Gulf University to determine the institution’s progress against a government-imposed improvement plan and made recommendations on how the University should further prepare for accreditation by an internationally-recognized accreditation body.
New York City, U.S.: Transforming CUNY
Leeds Global’s Chairman, Dr. Benno Schmidt, in his capacity as Chairman of the CUNY Board of Trustees, has been the primary force in the University’s strategic restructuring. With 260,000 regular degree students from community colleges to Ph.D. programs and an additional 250,000 students in various adult education programs, CUNY is the third largest public university system in the United States. Prior to Schmidt becoming Chairman of CUNY’s Board, the university was in a spiral of decline: student enrollment was in decline, the faculty was shrinking and aging, graduation rates were low, and 75% of its four-year college students required remediation in math and reading and writing. Under Schmidt’s leadership, CUNY underwent sweeping change and improvement: remediation at the four-year colleges was ended; academic standards for entering students were raised sharply; resources were focused on hiring new faculty; external objective academic assessments were introduced to evaluate CUNY students at all levels; an honors college was created for gifted students; and many other strategic reforms were initiated. The results are widely perceived to constitute the greatest success in public higher education in the United States over the past decade. Student enrollment has increased each year, amounting to more than a 30% increase over the decade; academic quality of entering students has risen sharply; graduation rates have improved. The full-time faculty has increased by 2,000 new professors, a 30% increase, in a time of budget cuts and no tuition increases. Voluntary giving has increased by 800% over the decade, the highest increase of any university in the United States.
Kansas City, U.S.: Forming a Coalition for School Change
In 2005, the Chairman of Leeds Global was asked by the leading foundations and civic organizations in Kansas City to chair a task force to create an education strategy for the greater Kansas City region. Kansas City is unusually complex because it is the only major American city divided equally between two states, Kansas and Missouri. The Task Force Report called for sweeping changes in K-12 and higher education. For the first time, the Report caused the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri to endorse a common education strategy. Both Governors formally endorsed the Report and caused more than $100 million to be appropriated to support the Report’s recommendations. All of Kansas City’s foundations and civic organizations endorsed the Report and generated philanthropic support for the Report of more than $100 million. Schmidt’s Kansas City strategy is wildly perceived as the outstanding example in the United States of bi-state cooperation in higher education in the United States.
New York City, U.S.: Leading “Children First”
From 2002 to 2004, the New York City Department of Education launched Children First, a multi-year strategic planning and implementation effort to dramatically improve New York City’s public schools. Leeds’ Senior Vice President for Policy and Planning, then with the Department, managed research and design efforts to bring greater choice to families across New York City and implemented the Mayor’s charter school initiative. This charter initiative expanded the number, quality, and accountability of charter schools across the city. Through this effort, $41 million was raised to create the New York City Charter Schools Center, which remains the leading supporter and advocate of the City and state’s charter school movement.