This year’s Broad Forum 2026 in Los Angeles, CA convened a remarkable gathering of education leaders, alumni, and practitioners committed to advancing public education through courageous leadership, purposeful collaboration, and forward-leaning ideas. Hosted by The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management, the Forum once again stood as a centerpiece in the field’s calendar — a place to reconnect, reflect, and reignite a shared commitment to student-centered systems change.
For many attendees, the Forum has become more than an annual meeting; it’s a professional homecoming. Leaders from diverse roles — superintendents, cabinet officers, network executives, and practitioners across districts and states — came together to share insights, hard-won lessons, and ideas for a more equitable future for all students. Conversations spanned the urgent challenges facing K-12 school systems today — from strengthening teacher retention to scaling effective instructional leadership — and energized participants to translate network learning into action back home.
The Forum’s structure — a mix of plenaries, breakout workshops, facilitated reflections, and peer affinity sessions — created a space where both big-picture ideas and practical strategies could flourish. Attendees participated in sessions focused on teacher retention, leadership development, data-informed decision-making, and equity-centered systems design. This blend helped leaders see not only the complexity of the issues they face, but also the connective threads that tie strong leadership to improved student and school outcomes.
Equally powerful were the informal moments between sessions: the hallway conversations, shared meals, and leadership stories of personal growth and resilience. These interactions underscore a central truth of the Broad network — that leadership cannot be done in isolation. It is the sustained support of a community dedicated to excellence and equity that helps leaders persist when the work gets hard.
As participants left Los Angeles, there was palpable energy and clarity of purpose. Many reflected that the Forum was not just a professional checkpoint but a renewal of commitment — a reminder that while the path forward for public education is complex, leaders who engage deeply with peers and with evidence-based practice are better equipped to shape systems where every child can thrive.
In the months ahead, the impact of Broad Forum 2026 will be seen not just in the conversations it sparked, but in the leadership moves and system improvements that unfold in school systems across the country — a testament to the power of networked leadership grounded in courage, connection, and collective purpose.