Pictured left to right: Penn GSE Dean Andy Porter; Edward Levie and Judd Rattner, of Intellidemia; Alexandre Scialom, of theCourseBook; and Penn GSE Overseer Gregory Milken, of the Milken Foundation. 

Alexandre Scialom, creator of theCourseBook, has won $50,000 in the only business plan competition designed to use innovation to improve education.

In 2010, governors and state school officials released the Common Core State Standards – a set of benchmarked recommendations meant to provide “a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.” 

In July, a Penn GSE team will travel to Haiti to launch a long-term educational development project.

The first phase of a longer-term redevelopment project in post-disaster Haiti, this trip will concentrate on building partnerships with the Haitian Ministry of Education and not-for-profit relief agencies working to rebuild the country. The team will also be conducting a community needs assessment, particularly focused on education.

Speaking at a panel discussion on the economy and higher education, Joni Finney told a packed house that the current crisis could provide "the perfect opportunity for reform."

What kind of people become K-12 leaders? Motivators. Movers. Shakers. Collaborators. Communicators. Constant learners. These answers came easily to the Philadelphia School District teachers and principals gathered at the Penn Center for Educational Leadership.

Four years after the tsunami struck in Indonesia, Penn GSE Associate Professor Kathy Schultz Gr'91 reflects on the long-term work of rebuilding the educational system there.

For the fourth year running, Penn GSE Associate Professor Kathy Schultz Gr'91 was reporting back from Aceh, the Indonesian province that was so hard hit in the 2004 tsunami.

“I am driven to make a difference in the urban education field,” says Zohra Omar C’07. A Pakistani citizen, Omar grew up a long way away from urban America. But her hometown of Karachi suffers from the same ills that haunt so many cities worldwide: “high levels of poverty and a miserable public education system,” as Omar explains.

Penn GSE’s new 9th Semester Scholar program has been designed with students like Omar in mind—bright, enthusiastic people committed to improving the world around them.