The William Penn Foundation has awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant to the University of Pennsylvania in support of the Kids Integrated Data System (KIDS).

Penn GSE has introduced a new executive-style master's-degree program for working educators and professionals interested in working as school counselors.

The program was created in partnership with the American School Counselor Association (ASCA).

Penn GSE is partnering with East China Normal University on the first-ever doctorate of education program offered in China.

The first cohort of students arrived on the Penn campus this fall for an intensive 12-week course that introduced them to cutting-edge issues in American education. Combined with site visits to area schools and universities, the course at Penn is designed to expand the students' understanding and introduce an international comparative element to their doctoral research.

The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education has secured a three-year, $800,000 grant — for a program called SPARK! — from the National Science Foundation to enrich science education for students in grades four through eight from six Philadelphia public schools.

Are Americans committed to educating students to be both workers and citizens, as we have long proclaimed? Or have we lost sight of the need to prepare students to be contributing members of a democratic society? What might schools look like if citizenship mattered as much as reading and math?

In "Leonard Covello... etc.", Michael Johanek and Penn GSE Professor John Puckett argue compellingly that the democratic goals of civic education can be reconciled with the academic performance demands of contemporary school reform movements.

As schools nationwide struggle to improve student achievement, educational experts and pundits propose competing models of leadership, with some placing responsibility on principals, some on teachers, and still others on parents.

Jonathan Supovitz, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that leadership for educational improvement comes from the top-that is, the school district.

This summer, Penn GSE entered into a partnership with Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO), a non-profit organization that prepares students for humane and engaged citizenship through the study of some of history's darkest days.

Believing that young people are "moral philosophers," FHAO connects history - particularly that of the Holocaust and other genocidal conflicts - to students' experiences and the choices they face in their own lives. In the process, students come to appreciate the need for civic participation and responsible decision-making.

New Program Prepares Learning Leaders to Strategically Influence Results in Their Organizations

African-Americans are more likely to get their college education in one of the 19 Southern or Southern-border states than in the rest of the country.

But how does their standing compare to white students in terms of enrollment and graduation?

A recent study from the University of Pennsylvania shows that, although some progress has been made, public higher education in the South remains highly inequitable for African-American students.

The Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania has approved the appointment of GSE Professor Stanton Wortham as Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Education, effective August 1, 2006.

Wortham will succeed Dean Susan Fuhrman, who has resigned to accept the presidency of Teachers College, Columbia University. A search for a permanent Dean will begin over the summer and continue during the Fall semester.