To provide its citizens with a top-notch education, Brazil has to do a careful balancing act.  The country needs to devise an approach that is true to its own history and culture, while learning from other countries about the policies and practices that have made them successful.  One challenge is to resist the temptation Brazilians have to import a model wholecloth from another nation, like Finland or South Korea, that is heralded for its academic accomplishments.

This year’s Lemann Dialogue, which takes place at Stanford on Nov. 20-21, will look at what ideas the United States, particularly California, can offer to Brazilian scholars, entrepreneurs and policymakers seeking to develop its education system.

The event, “Public Education in Brazil: Where is it headed and can technological innovation, entrepreneurship and policy research help it improve?” will feature educational leaders from both nations, including Cristovam Buarque, senator and former minister of education in Brazil; Ted Mitchell, under secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; and Jorge Paulo Lemann, chairman of the board of the Lemann Foundation and a Brazilian financier.

The event will be streamed live online. Please visit https://lemanncenter.stanford.edu/ for details. Registration to attend in person is now closed. Representatives of the media should RSVP to Cristina Antunes, cantunes@stanford.edu. Space is limited.

Stanford’s Lemann Center for Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation is co-hosting the event with the Stanford Center for International Development.

In addition to providing a comprehensive discussion of the latest trends in education technology and policy, the Lemann Dialogue will mark the inauguration of the new home of the Lemann Center in the CERAS building at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education (GSE). The center, which has been in operation for the past two years, is fostering research and educational programs aimed at improving learning in Brazilian public schools, especially among low-income students, as well as new learning opportunities outside the public school system.

The Center is attracting the best and brightest of Brazil’s graduates and professionals from a range of top-ranked fields, including engineering, economics, applied mathematics and business. It currently boasts 16 fellows and six visiting scholars, whom will return to Brazil and take leadership roles in transforming the nation’s education system.

The center is led by four members of the GSE faculty, whose expertise extends from education policy to education innovation and technology; they have significant experience working and conducting research in Brazil, as well as a commitment to working with Brazilian researchers and students. They are:

• Martin Carnoy, the Vida Jacks Professor of Education, who has more than four decades of experience doing research in Brazil and recently co-authored a book comparing engineering education in Brazil with its counterparts in China, Russia and India;
• David Plank, who in addition to serving as executive director of the research institute, Policy Analysis for California Education, is a longtime scholar of the politics of education in Brazil and author of The Means of Our Salvation: Public Education in Brazil: 1930-1995;
• Paolo Blikstein, a Brazilian from São Paulo, who founded and directs the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at the GSE and an expert in integrating fabrication labs into schools and other learning environments;
• Eric Bettinger, an economist who studies education, including effectiveness of online courses and programs that help prepare college readiness.

All four will be participating in the Dialogue, along with Michael Kirst, president of the California State Board of Education and professor of education emeritus, and Francisco Soares, an expert in educational assessment in Brazil, among others.

To see the complete list of speakers and the schedule, please see the program (https://lemanncenter.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/LemannDialogue2014...).

The Lemann Center for Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Brazil is an initiative of the Lemann Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 2002 that aims to improve the quality of public education in Brazil. In addition to the Stanford center, the foundation has established centers at Columbia, Harvard and University of Illinois. The 2014 Lemann Dialogue is the fourth such event, with the previous ones hosted by each of the other centers.

This year’s conference is distinguished from the previous events by its emphasis on technology and entrepreneurship. The conference includes entrepreneurs, and it aims to build stronger relationships between technology innovators in the United States and Brazil.