A Project of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association in collaboration with the American Council on Germany
From March 15-21, 2026, a 14-person delegation of Americans visited Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Wuppertal, and Mainz, as part of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association’s (PSBA) International Education Study Group to provide school board members and school administrators from the state with an overview of the German education system, including how it works, how the system achieves results, how it is funded, and much more. The intent of the project is to gather ideas for the adaptation and implementation of German practices and to develop recommendations centered on changes Pennsylvania school districts could implement to significantly enhance district academics, operations, facilities, and culture. Members of the delegation represented rural and suburban school districts from across the state of Pennsylvania.
The International Study Group spent their first day in Düsseldorf, the capital of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), visiting a range of state-level institutions. At the NRW Education Ministry, the delegation met with Dorothee Feller, Minister of Education, who highlighted the priorities of the ministry, explained the delineation of school authority between the federal government, state, and local municipalities, and discussed some of the educational challenges which were similar to those in Pennsylvania. Ministry representatives also provided presentations on crisis management plans related to violence prevention, extremism, and child abuse and on efforts to hire more teachers amongst a teacher shortage, something endemic in both countries. The group then met with Nathanael Liminski, Head of the State Chancellery and Minister for Federal and European Affairs, International Affairs, and Media, who explained education was the top priority of the state government as demonstrated by the funding levels (1/3 of the state budget), which despite budgetary cuts overall has not been impacted. At the Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, members of the State Parliament’s Education Committee and NRW-USA parliamentary group shared their perspectives on the educational challenges facing the state, including the need for more schools and teachers, policies on cell phones in schools, integration of students representing 30+ nationalities, and the impact of AI.
On their second day in Gelsenkirchen, once Europe’s largest mining city with a proud industrial heritage now suffering high unemployment and low incomes, the delegation first visited the Evangelical Comprehensive School Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck which won the German School Prize 2025. The systematic and consistent development toward open, self-regulated, and project-based learning, anchored in the “free learning” curriculum, is a particular strength of the school in which students learn to sustainably manage and shape their own learning process. With students from a diverse range of countries and multiple religious backgrounds, the school focuses on helping students to listen, reflect, and collaborate across cultures to achieve understanding, not uniformity. At the NRW-Center for Talent Promotion, which has the goal to help young people realize their potential, participants learned about their platform of programs that proactively support high-achieving young talents with their educational and professional development through targeted outreach, scholarships, and ongoing mentoring. The NRW-TalentScouts program has more than 110 talent scouts who meet with students at approximately 600 vocational schools, comprehensive schools, and high schools and works with them to develop visions for their professional future, identify pathways, build helpful networks, and open access to existing support instruments within the education system.
The delegation had a busy third day, visiting two schools in Bochum and an initiative supporting STEM education. At the Schulverbund Feldsieper Schule, an elementary school, the school principal and lead English teacher, along with other administrators, discussed how the school is managed and coordinates with local and state school officials, engagement with parents, sex education, and the responsibilities and burdens on teachers. They also had the opportunity to tour classrooms and interact with students in an English class – impressing everyone once again about the English language proficiency of students in Germany. The delegation had an opportunity to have one-on-one, in-depth conversations with high school students at the Goethe-Schule: Gymnasium der Stadt Bochum who shared information about their classes and coursework, homework, exams, and educational plans following completion of the Abitur, the highest school-leaving certificate and university entrance qualification. Younger students prepared personally-designed handouts for each member of the delegation, describing their school and what a typical day looks like. The day wrapped up with a meeting at MINT-Bochum, the local agency for Zukunft durch Innovation.NRW (zdi), a STEM network providing extracurricular programming for students in NRW from kindergarten through college. The zdi network has served 4.5 million students over 20 years and supports 100 experimentation labs and learning workshops, works with students in more than 2,000 schools, and partners with more than 5,000 partners from business, universities, and politics. Lord Mayor Jörg Lukat of Bochum welcomed the delegation and discussed the role MINT-Bochum plays in Bochum’s Strategy 2030, the city’s strategic plan, noting how STEM guides are sent into neighborhoods rated low on the NRW social index.
In Wuppertal on their fourth day, the study group first met with the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, faculty, and students majoring in education at the Universität Wuppertal – School of Education to learn about teacher education and educational trends in Germany. The extremely interactive discussion covered a range of topics including: the structure of teacher training and professional development; motivations for becoming teachers; priorities in teacher education on issues like inclusion, digitalization, and inequality/injustice recruitment; compensation, and assessment; and efforts to address ongoing teacher shortages. At the Bayer AG Research and Development Center: Aprath (Bayer’s first manufacturing site was founded in 1866 in Wuppertal) the discussions focused on future skills development and training and apprenticeship programs at Bayer as part of Germany’s dual system of apprenticeships. The group toured labs for apprentices preparing to be biology laboratory technicians and chemical laboratory technicians and had the opportunity to talk with apprentices about what drove them to pursue their educational path. Currently, 152 apprentices in eight occupational fields are being trained in 3-year programs combining practical training at Bayer-Wuppertal with theoretical education at a vocational school. While in Wuppertal, the group also had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Consul General (Düsseldorf) Preeti Shah who discussed the state of NRW’s commitment to education and its many exchange ties with the United States.
The delegation concluded its study tour to Germany in Mainz. The director of the Mainz School Authority and his team provided an overview of the department’s oversight and funding responsibilities which include: planning, implementing, and supporting school construction projects; ensuring school operations by providing equipment, teaching and learning materials, and technical infrastructure; school development planning; planning and organizing school transportation (mostly using existing public transport); supporting the establishment of all-day schools; and ensuring staffing in school secretariats. The local school authority does not develop curriculum or hire the teachers – these are state ministry responsibilities. The presentation highlighted a school construction project using modular containers as a temporary school while the new school gets completed. In its final meeting, the group met with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Rheinhessen (IHK) to learn how chambers serve as the “competent authority” for apprenticeship education in Germany and help coordinate the various stakeholders involved in vocational education. The chambers provide quality assurance by advising companies and apprentices and assessing company and instructor eligibility, and they register apprenticeship agreements, organize exams, and provide the completion certificate which is recognized throughout the country. The group was impressed by the deep engagement of companies in providing training programs.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has created working groups that will summarize lessons learned on the study tour that could be valuable for implementation in Pennsylvania school districts. Their findings will be presented at the PSBA Annual Conference in Fall 2026. As one participant noted, “seeing another country and comparing their education system to ours is extremely beneficial because it allows us to see what we do well but also where we can learn from others to make improvements.” The ACG looks forward to supporting the PSBA and their efforts to share international perspectives on education in Pennsylvania and to build further bridges with the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia and other regions in Germany.
