Around the world, urban school systems sit at the center of change in policy and practice, shedding a light on education’s most critical challenges while serving as the engines of innovation that can address them.
Digital Promise’s Global Cities Education Network (GCEN) harnesses the power of cities and their urban school systems by creating opportunities for high-ranking leaders to visit cities around the world, observe how they are succeeding in addressing specific global challenges in education, and work together to figure out how they might adapt and adopt similar approaches in their unique contexts.
GCEN seeks to share promising practices to develop systemic responses to systemic education problems, ultimately improving education for all students.
Leaders gather annually for a dynamic, four- to five-day learning experience involving school site visits, collaborative exchanges, and presentations from experts, with a focus on specific areas of expertise from the host city.
Over 12 to 18 months, leaders dive into a specific challenge area, working together to move beyond best practice discussion into policy and practice change through resources and tools, expert-led workshops, and an international study tour.
Leaders publicly share lessons learned through international engagement opportunities by contributing to reports and articles, sharing their stories, serving as webinar panelists, and more, ensuring that impact extends beyond their own systems.
Leaders publicly share lessons learned through international engagement opportunities by contributing to reports and articles, sharing their stories, serving as webinar panelists, and more, ensuring that impact extends beyond their own systems.
Implementation cohorts provide system leaders with opportunities to deeply explore a specific educational challenge alongside leaders from around the world. Over the course of 12 to 18 months, participants access cutting-edge resources, learn from global experts, and witness leading approaches firsthand through an international study tour.
Education system leaders, school leaders, educators, and community partners across the globe are working to create learning environments where students who are new to their countries can thrive. Despite the pandemic and political changes, Portugal has emerged as a leader in this space through its nationwide system of inclusive education.
Our current implementation cohort, Educating Newcomer Students, is engaging leaders around this topic through Digital Promise’s Collaborative Innovation framework.
GCEN are global thought leaders working on education’s most-pressing challenges. They regularly share their insights and expertise by contributing to reports and articles, serving as webinar panelists, delivering conference presentations, and more.
Sponsoring GCEN programming signals that your organization is willing to work across systems and geographic boundaries to support and empower education leaders.
Learn with and from system-level decision makers, while building relationships that last, by supporting a GCEN symposia, study tour, or implementation cohort.
Embedded Partnerships: Build relationships with leaders across systems through a study trip that allows conversations and planning to unfold over several days in a small group experience.
Context-Based Lessons: Through site visits, cultural experiences, and extended engagement, you will learn alongside systems leaders as they explore how their international peers are responding to shared challenges.
Practitioner Trust: Be seen as thought partners, not vendors, by directly engaging in GCEN’s high-trust, participant-centered environment.
“It’s so easy to get stuck in your own context and only know the way you do things. An opportunity like this ... it's hard to quantify what an amazing experience that is.”
Interested in exploring partnership options? Email Rebecca Banks to learn more.
