Ed Leaders from the Americas To Meet at Penn GSE

January 20, 2010 - On January 24-26, Penn GSE will host the inaugural meeting of Penn’s Americas Educational Leadership Network (PAELN/RLEA).

Designed as a generative collaboration among key stakeholders, this working session will focus on shaping an organization that will draw on local knowledge to develop practical leadership support across the region.

Participants include educational leaders from the U.S. and Latin America as well representatives from Penn’s School of Medicine, Latin American Studies program, Economics department, and Penn GSE.

The meeting will be convened on Sunday afternoon by PAELN Co-Directors Mike Johanek, director of Penn GSE’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, and Sharon Ravitch, director of Executive Leadership Development. The conference will feature individual presentations, followed by a discussion of implications for the emerging network.

Among the presenters are Steven Larson, associate dean for Global Health Programs and associate professor at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Larson will speak about the relationship between health care, nutrition, and educational innovation in his work in Central America and with Latino immigrants in the U.S.

In addition, Penn economics professor Petra Elisabeth Todd, an economics professor at Penn, who will discuss her recent research in conditional cash transfers and educational improvement. A discussion on “School Reform Directions in Latin America – A Policy Perspective” will be led by Jeffrey M. Puryear. Puryear is vice president for Social Policy at Inter-American Dialogue and co-director of the Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas.

Throughout the two-day conference, participants will discuss case studies from Nicaragua; Nuevo Mundo, Ecuador; and Fe y Alegría, Christo Rey Network.

For more information, visit PAELN or RLEA's webpage.

Media contact: Jill DiSanto-Haines at 215-898-4820 or jdisanto@upenn.edu