Education and Society Program

Learning Networks

Aspen Learning Networks Focused on Developing and Nurturing Talent and Building Cross-District Capacities

By providing ongoing and consistent opportunities for education leaders to experience professional development with their peers focused on common challenges, the program is helping participants to identify solutions that will support, nurture and develop a new cadre of school system, school and classroom leaders. Though roughly three-quarters of our total education dollars are used to support personnel, there has been little or no alignment of these resources with academic and leadership goals. And school systems are generally not well organized to support the continuous learning of the adults in their schools and central offices. In response to the growing need to rethink this context, the Program has developed several learning networks including an urban Superintendents Network, a Senior Educational Congressional Staff Network, and a Chief Academic Officer Network (CAO). Recognizing districts' urgent need to improve high school literacy, Aspen has launched a network of urban literacy leaders (ULLN)  to help tackle common challenges.  We partnered in this work with the Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which had previously launched a network of urban math leaders (UMLN).

The Superintendents, CAO, ULLN and UMLN Network leadership meet regularly to ensure best practices and perspectives are shared across all four networks. One meeting per year has been designed to allow for the meeting of all four networks concurrently to assist in supporting innovation within and across districts.

The Aspen Urban Superintendents Network, now in its ninth year, brings together leaders of the nation's major urban districts to share insights, learn from one another and from advisors and research and analysis about the shared challenges in closing the achievement gap for all students. Out of this work a demand for specific learning networks within districts has emerged, and the program is now supporting groups of Chief Academic Officers and two other networks in curriculum areas where all the superintendents reported they faced the greatest challenges: Math and Adolescent Literacy [Read more about these complementary networks here]:

"Superintendents have little time and few opportunities for thinking, reflecting and then discussing the challenges we are facing in our urban school districts. How to learn from each other is a clear goal [of this program] where there are examples with evidence of best practice. And talking about precise ways to collaborate has been important."

"The chance to spend quality time with my peers from across the country is simply invaluable - these two weekends each year are by far the most important professional development I engage in. I always leave feeling refreshed and with lots of ideas to work on."

Aspen Senior Education Congressional Staff Network, now in its fourth year, brings together valued resource participants from state, local and education policy, researchers and practitioners to provide this bi-partisan group of congressional senior staff with better understanding of the capacity of states and districts to carry out policy, the barriers they face and the kind of solutions they believe will contribute to improvement. At retreats, the focused discussion of practices worthy of attention provides perspective on how federal policy plays out in real settings. Site visits to school districts provide opportunities for in-depth learning and reflection. The Hill staff hear from and have dialogue with district, school, teacher leaders and students that provides insight into the impact of federal policy on the quality of teaching and learning. Feedback from this Network suggests we are meeting our goals:

"The Aspen retreat provided me with a new appreciation for how to define "highly effective teacher" and better understanding of potential incentives to improve quality teaching"