Public college districts throughout the nation are dealing with declining enrollment and shrinking budgets. This actuality is forcing district leaders to make tough choices about methods to use restricted funds. It’s extra vital than ever for these leaders to achieve a strong understanding of what works.
When district leaders prioritize research-backed approaches of their colleges, they will direct their crucial funds towards improvements that can enhance scholar outcomes. World studying alternatives allow them to see how different nations strategy educating and studying.
“You study extra about your personal system and ask higher questions by analyzing different methods which can be fully totally different,” stated Dr. Laura Jacob, superintendent of the California Space Faculty District in Coal Middle, Pennsylvania, and a member of the Digital Promise League of Revolutionary Faculties.
In 2024 and 2025, Jacob was amongst greater than 60 training leaders who took benefit of worldwide studying alternatives with Digital Promise, specializing in two well timed subjects: whole-child growth and the way forward for technology-enabled studying.
Held in Helsinki, Finland, in 2024, and Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2025, these worldwide research excursions are a part of a collaborative studying program. All through the 12- to 18-month engagement in an implementation cohort, training leaders achieve perspective on how different nations handle key challenges. Additionally they discover ways to translate these insights into actionable methods for their very own districts, drawing from each other’s native contexts in addition to from the methods they expertise firsthand by means of the research excursions.
“The concepts that you simply get from these totally different nations simply enable you accomplish that significantly better [locally],” famous Jacob.
One such thought got here from Helsinki, the place Jacob and her staff discovered concerning the “Fox E-book,” a citywide environmental curriculum that teaches elementary college students about sustainability and methods to clear up issues. The characters are based mostly on animals in Finland that the youngsters are acquainted with, like arctic foxes, moles and herring.
“It resonated with me a lot,” stated Jacob, particularly coming from an animal-loving, rural college group.
“So we created ‘The Goat E-book.’ It stands for Rising Our Consciousness Collectively,” she defined. Every story follows the Finnish Fox E-book examples, however the characters are native Pennsylvania animals, together with a goat like they’ve on campus. Jacob labored with grade-level groups and used AI instruments to develop the cartoon characters, construct the narratives and align to state requirements.
These classroom studying alternatives, coupled with cultural experiences that may solely come from being immersed in a worldwide tradition, give district leaders a brand new perspective — one which they take again to their districts to deal with real-world challenges and create sensible options.
Bringing a Finnish Complete-Baby Strategy to Connecticut
How can districts present tutorial in addition to social, emotional and bodily assist when working with college students from vastly totally different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds?
This query drove Sandra Faioes, deputy superintendent for Norwalk Public Faculties, to hitch the Digital Promise Complete-Baby Growth Implementation Cohort (Complete Baby IC). At Norwalk Public Faculties in Connecticut, the group is numerous and rising. They’re welcoming an rising variety of multilingual learners from world wide, whereas additionally supporting extra college students qualifying free of charge and reduced-price lunch.
Recognizing {that a} whole-child strategy was key to making sure each youngster in her district was well-supported and able to study and thrive, Faioes seemed overseas. Helsinki, Finland, is well-known for its complete strategy to training. Visiting these colleges supplied a possibility to study from an exemplary whole-child-centered instructional mannequin with different like-minded friends.
“Everyone that is [in the Whole Child IC] has both tried one thing out, is within the course of of really constructing or enhancing these initiatives, or is in search of to study what different persons are doing. It was nice to be with people who find themselves all striving towards the same purpose,” she stated.
Through the journey, Faioes was struck by how Finland constructed a tradition that prioritized outside play and exploration. At one college go to, she discovered that college students spend two hours outdoors earlier than starting problem- and project-based studying. After one other noon break outdoor, they returned for extra classroom work earlier than the tip of the day.
Again residence in Connecticut, Faioes hosted knowledgeable growth session for elementary college educators on the evidence-backed deserves of play-based studying and methods to combine these practices of their lecture rooms. The purpose was to indicate educators that small, research-based modifications could make a significant impression.
“As a frontrunner, [international study tours] encourage you to need to push individuals and attain for extra,” Faioes stated. “It evokes you to push the boundaries.”
Reworking Know-how in Colorado with Uruguay Insights
Merely seeing examples of worldwide training methods and the way they work isn’t sufficient to evoke change at residence. Options-oriented examples should be put right into a real-world context, recognizing the complexities of varied training ecosystems and contexts. By pairing these genuine examples with on-the-ground consultants, akin to leaders from training organizations and edtech corporations, district leaders can craft an motion plan to carry these modifications again stateside.
As a longtime edtech innovator and former district chief in Denver, Colorado, Kellie Ady, senior director of training technique and studying innovation at PowerSchool, joined the research tour in Montevideo, Uruguay.
In Uruguay, the research group noticed firsthand how the nation constructed and supported its nationwide efforts towards offering equitable entry to digital studying inside and out of doors of the classroom. They discovered how trainer coaching classes leverage know-how in rural and concrete lecture rooms. They visited college websites, linked with students and training leaders and noticed teaching programs that incorporate AI and rising applied sciences throughout the nation.
“It’s really easy to get caught in your personal context and solely understand how you do issues. A chance like this to not solely step out of your personal context, however step out of your personal nation context and study from any person else, after which have a community of individuals you are additionally studying alongside — it’s arduous to quantify what an incredible expertise that’s,” Ady stated.
Highly effective studying can’t occur in a silo. When district leaders are supplied alternatives to collaborate and widen their horizons by means of world studying alternatives, they will establish new and revolutionary instructional approaches that they will take again to their residence districts.
This yr, particularly, district leaders should make good, research-backed choices on methods to spend their dwindling district budgets. Collaboration is crucial to creating such choices. And, fortunately, district leaders don’t should go it alone.
Keep updated on future worldwide studying alternatives with Digital Promise’s League of Revolutionary Faculties.
