He is also the founder of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement as well as co-founder of Knowledge Universe, the world’s largest provider of early childhood education from 2005 until 2016.
[11][12] Milken graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley[13][14] where he won the business department's top student award.
degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif honor society and an editor of the UCLA Law Review.
[16] Milken particularly enjoyed and excelled at the tax-study lunches at Irell & Manella, where a senior attorney at the firm presented a complicated case and the lawyers in attendance attempted to come up with unique solutions.
[19] His brother Michael Milken had moved the operation to Los Angeles the year before,[19][20] and he hired Lowell to serve as a departmental senior vice-president until he resigned in 1989.
[22][25] It has been suggested that the government indicted Lowell in order to put pressure on Michael to settle the case against him, a tactic condemned as unethical by some legal scholars.
[30] Lowell also serves as Chairman of National Realty Trust Inc., the largest property owner of early childhood centers in the United States.
[37] He also established the Lowell Milken Family Foundation in 1986 to support and provide funding for organizations and initiatives that strengthen communities through education and lifelong learning.
[40] Well before data-driven education reform was emphasized by the 2000 No Child Left Behind legislation, Lowell Milken conceived, implemented and oversaw programs and initiatives to advocate for, support, and reward teachers who were improving student achievement in a measurable manner in America's K-12 schools.
By providing greater rewards and motivations for quality teaching, this strategy makes the profession competitive with other industries scrambling to recruit scarce human capital in our increasingly knowledge-based economy."
The TAP System was designed by Lowell Milken[46] to significantly improve teacher recruitment, retention, practices, motivation and performance.
The comprehensive whole school reform model is intended to improve teacher quality in the United States and, in turn, enhance student learning through opportunities given to teachers and administrators to pursue multiple career paths, receive ongoing professional growth, participate in instructionally focused accountability and earn additional compensation and bonuses based on multiple measures of performance.
[49][50] In 2005, Milken founded an independent public charity to support and manage the TAP System, The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET),[51] and has since served as its chairman.
[55] Former US Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon said of Lowell Milken, "When the history of education for the latter 20th and early 21st centuries is written, it will undoubtedly look upon the efforts of Lowell Milken - especially his groundbreaking successes with the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement - as seminal in addressing the core issues of high-quality teaching and learning.
[57] The public nonprofit organization discovers, develops and communicates the stories of unsung heroes who have made a profound and positive difference on the course of history and includes a 6,000-square-foot museum space with permanent and rotating exhibitions.
[67] Eileen Strempel, dean of the school of music said of the gift: “We are incredibly grateful to Lowell Milken for his generous gift to endow this center, which builds on our latest learnings, establishes a standard of excellence and an enduring infrastructure at UCLA for music of the American Jewish experience, and gives us the ability to plan more ambitious initiatives for years to come.”[68] In 2021, Milken donated $3.7 million to establish the Program on Philanthropy and Nonprofits at UCLA School of Law, which focuses on research, training and policy.
[69] “We are immensely grateful to Lowell Milken for his visionary gift," said Jennifer Mnookin, Dean of the UCLA School of Law.