The Broad Center Celebrates the Master’s in Public Education Management Class of 2026

The fourth cohort of the Master’s in Public Education Management gathered at Yale SOM’s Evans Hall on August 8 to mark the completion of the program and look ahead to their continued work as public education leaders.

Over the last 14 months, the master’s students have traveled to SOM’s campus for five residence weeks while continuing to work full-time in large urban public education systems across the U.S.; they hold roles in school districts, charter management organizations, and state education agencies. The tuition-free program, offered by The Broad Center (TBC), builds management and leadership skills in mid-career public education professionals, honing their abilities to make an impact on the school systems they serve.

The cohort celebrated their achievement alongside family, friends, TBC staff, and faculty including marshal Shana Young, a lecturer in the practice of management, who was selected by last year’s graduating class to receive the Master’s in Public Education Management Annual Teaching Award.

Yale SOM Dean Kerwin K. Charles noted in his remarks that the master’s program exemplifies the school’s core mission of educating leaders for business and society.

“The important task of equipping education leaders with the skills and tools necessary to lead the country in its essential responsibility to discharge the key function of educating its young has never been a more urgent and pressing concern,” he told graduates. “You’ve collectively embraced this work with enthusiasm, with creativity, and with dedication.”

Andrew McRae, a member of the 2023-24 cohort of The Fellowship for Public Education Leadership and chief executive officer for the Cleveland, Ohio, charter school network Breakthrough Public Schools, gave a keynote address. He urged graduates to lead with purpose, especially when faced with difficult or unpopular decisions.

“It is the initiative you stop because it no longer serves children,” he said. “It is the budget choice no one applauds today, but students benefit from tomorrow. It is the discipline to ask, ‘Who is this serving? Who is this harming? What are we avoiding?’”

McRae noted that achievement gaps in school systems are not evidence of students’ deficits but rather of “unequal opportunity, adult decisions, and system design.” Repairing those problems “is your work,” he told the graduating class.

Two members of the Class of 2026 also shared remarks. Ashley Daniels-Hall ’26 encouraged her peers to remain true to their values and lean on the community they built during the program.

“One of Yale’s greatest gifts wasn’t simply an education,” she said. “It was each other—people who will celebrate us, challenge us, and remind us if we ever begin to drift.”

Rashid Duroseau ’26 emphasized the importance of centering people in public education work. He cautioned against “devotion to elegant plans that grow more precious than the people they were meant to serve” and called attention to the power of collective action.

“Leadership can’t only be the story of heroic scale,” he told his peers.

The ceremony culminated with the SOM tradition of self-graduation. Each graduate’s name was announced by a classmate as they crossed the stage in recognition of their graduation.

Before graduating students walked the stage, Natasha Trivers, assistant dean and Anita and Joshua Bekenstein ’80 B.A. Executive Director of The Broad Center and an alumna of the Fellowship for Public Education Leadership, offered closing remarks.

“You all are leaving Yale SOM stronger, more precise, more skilled than when you arrived,” she said. “But you’re also leaving with your biggest superpower, which was here with you the whole time.” That superpower, she explained, consists of the stories, experiences, and perspectives they bring to their work and communities.

Trivers urged graduates to stay optimistic about the future and their ability to shape it: “Ask yourself, ‘If not me, then who? If not now, then when?’”