Background

In 2011, the National Public Education Support Fund began to organize international site visits to high-performing education systems for members of the Education Funder Strategy Group and other education leaders. Delegations of federal and state policymakers, leaders of philanthropic foundations, teachers’ associations, and nonprofit institutions, and teachers, principals, and superintendents travelled to Ontario, Canada, Singapore, and Shanghai, China to learn firsthand what these countries are doing to help their students succeed. The latest installment in this series of learning journeys – Finland – has provided us with many ideas of how to inform and accelerate the process of educational reform in the U.S.

This report is a meant to provide a summary of the key takeaways from the 2012 education delegation to Finland. You will find a brief overview of why we chose to travel to Finland, the qualities of the Finnish education system that we found most effective and thought provoking, and ways to proceed with education in the United States, as informed by our experiences up north. We have also included a copy of our trip itinerary and a list of our delegates. For further information on the trip and to review blog posts from the delegates written during the trip, we invite you to visit the trip website and blog at www.efsgfinland.tumblr.com (password: efsgfinland).

Read the entire report on equity, excellence, and whole child care from our 2012 visit to Finland.

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