
You'd be hard pressed to find a place more connected than Connecticut, whose school and country partnerships, international-education committees, advocacy organizations, and recent legislation should inspire educators everywhere. Programs include the following:
Idaho has developed an International Education Task Force and outlined a set of goals to inject international content into education through a concerted effort to design classroom activities, sister-school partnerships, and teacher- and student-exchange opportunities. The state Department of Education [1]'s Web site features downloadable lessons for social studies, language arts, world history, government, and economics. Other programs include the following:
Thanks to the Confucius Institute [2] and the Chicago Board of Education's Office of Language and Cultural Education [3], the city's Chinese Connection Program is by far the largest Chinese-language program in the United States. Thirty-eight full-time teachers, including visiting teachers from China, participate at twenty-eight schools. The OLCE also supports instruction in other languages and cultures. Illinois has established international initiatives such as sister-school partnerships, scholarships for exchange students, and international summer institutes for teachers.
Additional programs include the following:
Massachusetts weaves international education into the fabric of state policy. The Global Education Advisory Council, along with legislation supporting a global perspective in schools, provides incentives for curriculum integration, professional development for teachers, and establishment of an International Education Week. Several nonprofit advocacy groups, such as the Massachusetts Initiative for International Studies [4], and its parent organization, Primary Source [5], are partnering with the state Department of Education [6] and other associations to support international education. In April 2007, an international education conference will be held in Boston at the University of Massachusetts.
In addition, the China Exchange Initiative [7] and the China Education Association for International Exchange help both American and Chinese superintendents and principals visit and learn from one another's schools.
The Ohio Department of Education [8] is reassessing its academic standards in order to meet international benchmarks like those provided by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). To help alleviate the shortage of qualified foreign-language teachers, the state DOE has approved alternative licensing programs at local universities. Also, an international advisory committee consisting of members of the education, government, corporate, and nonprofit sectors plans to hold an international education summit. Additional programs include the following:
Wisconsin was the first state to appoint an international-education coordinator; it also pioneered a planning guide for international curriculum, now both a book and a CD-ROM available for purchase on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction [9]'s Web site. Planning Curriculum in International Education offers comprehensive advice to teachers of all subjects on how to build, organize, and maintain an "internationalized" classroom and school. Current activities include the following:
Connecticut
Idaho
Illinois
General
Links:
[1] http://www.sde.idaho.gov
[2] http://www.confuciusinstitutechicago.org
[3] http://www.olce.org
[4] http://www.massinitiative.org
[5] http://www.primarysource.org
[6] http://www.doe.mass.edu
[7] http://www.thechinaexchangeinitiative.org
[8] http://www.ode.state.oh.us
[9] http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/index.html
[10] http://www.dpi.wi.gov/pubsales/language.html
[11] http://www.state.ct.us/sde
[12] http://www.ctwac.org
[13] http://us.iearn.org/professional_development/face_to_face/idaho.php
[14] http://www.cps.k12.il.us
[15] http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/foreign_languages/international.htm
[16] http://www.globaled.org
[17] http://www.internationaled.org
[18] http://www.languagepolicy.org
[19] http://www.mywonderfulworld.org
[20] http://www.iearn.org
[21] http://www.globalschoolnet.org
[22] http://www.thinkquest.org