Learning Forward is proud to be an international community and to work with The Learning Professional authors and readers from around the world. In this issue, we celebrate that and focus on how we can learn from each other across geographical boundaries and cultures. 

Often in education, we focus on which nations are on top and whether our students are at a competitive advantage or disadvantage, which can sometimes drive education policy. But in addition to learning from each other, we have a lot to learn with each other. Working together across borders, we can consider elements that are common to successful systems and how they might be expanded or adapted to other contexts. 

The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) regularly reviews data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and looks for such common elements. They have identified four broad categories: effective teachers and principals, a rigorous and adaptive learning system, an equitable foundation of support, and coherent and aligned governance (NCEE, 2024). Educator learning and growth are part of or supported by all of these categories, as we illustrated in a recent issue (Learning Forward, 2023). 

Top performers prioritize high-quality learning that aligns with the Standards for Professional Learning (Learning Forward, 2022). For example, NCEE identified “fostering teacher collaboration” as one of five priorities for building future-ready education systems. Consistent with the Culture of Collaborative Inquiry standard, they reported that, “To help teachers deepen their expertise, global leaders invest in time, space, funding, and support for reciprocal peer-to-peer learning and collaborative, innovative practice … (which) means rethinking time and scheduling, reimagining the geography of classrooms, practicing flexibility with student groupings and class sizes, and using technology” (NCEE, 2023). 

This issue of The Learning Professional builds on these themes of successful common elements to explore how systems are investing in teachers’ and leaders’ growth. We examine a wide range of promising efforts in places as geographically distant as Palau, Canada, Ghana, and India. As international education expert Anthony Mackay points out in the Q&A we have no time to waste. The challenges facing our schools and our world require global collaboration and innovation. 

Fortunately, there are more ways to learn from each other, thanks to technology, international convenings, and cross-cutting resources. At Learning Forward, we are inspired by teams of educators from Singapore at our Annual Conference and educators from Qatar and Ecuador who participate in our webinars. We develop our own knowledge by learning about system efforts to apply the standards in Nigeria and Bermuda. We grow by collaborating with Learning Forward Affiliates in Canada and India. 

Wherever you live and work, we encourage you to expand your perspective and invite you to share your insights with us. By learning together, we can discover that we have more in common than we realize, including answers to some of today’s toughest challenges. 

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