Billionaire businessman Eli Broad, one of the country's most active philanthropists, founded the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2002 with an extraordinarily optimistic goal: Find leaders from both inside and outside education, train them, and have them occupying the superintendencies in a third of the 75 largest school districts--in just two years. Now hosting its 10th class, the Los Angeles-based program hasn't quite reached that goal, but it's close. The nation's three biggest districts have Broad-trained executives in top leadership positions. In all, 21 of the nation's 75 largest districts now have superintendents or other highly placed central-office executives who have undergone Broad training. But as the program has risen in prominence and prestige--758 people applied this year, and eight were accepted--it has also drawn impassioned criticism from people who see it as a destructive force. They say Broad-trained superintendents use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers' job protections, cut parents out of decision making, and introduce unproven reform measures. Whatever the larger issues surrounding education philanthropy, supporters of the Broad Superintendents Academy say criticism of the training program is off base. Erica Lepping, a spokeswoman for the Broad Foundation, says the academy exposes program participants to many viewpoints, and that the graduates come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including education, and hold different points of view.