Earlier this month, John White, Louisiana state superintendent of education and board chair of Chiefs for Change, wrote a piece for the Washington Post that explored the progress made in America’s public schools over the past decade. Excerpts appear below: On the extremes of the right and the left, there is a growing desire to Read more about What’s Working in America’s Public Schools[…]
The world is changing and so are its schools. In recognition of the need to prepare students for an evolving and increasingly interconnected world, a growing number of countries have remodeled their education systems to deliver an education built for the 21st century, producing higher achievement and greater equity than the U.S. How are they Read more about Empowered Educators Webinar Series[…]
What can we learn from global education powerhouses? These are countries that consistently produce high-achieving, well-prepared students. Are there specific strategies that these top performers have consistently implemented? In this month’s issue brief, Core Education explores global perspectives on education reform. We look at best practices from high-performing countries and the specifics of teacher preparation, Read more about November Issue Brief: A Global Perspective on Ed Reform[…]
Recently in a Top Performers opinion piece in Education Week, Marc Tucker explored the reasons why differences in teacher performance within schools are so prevalent in America and more rare in other countries. Excerpts from the piece appear below: According to an OECD analysis of variation of student performance in science, between-school variation accounts for Read more about Differences in Performance WITHIN Schools: Why So Much Greater Than in Other Countries?[…]
Mark Tucker, writing for the Top Performers blog, recently weighed in on a discussion about the value of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) by providing an international perspective. Excerpts from his piece appear below: One of the things that has really impressed us about the schools serving very vulnerable children in East Asia is their Read more about Social and Emotional Learning from an International Perspective[…]
Ben Jensen of the The National Center on Education and the Economy examines how the U.S. can improve teacher preparation by learning from Finland, Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong and how these top-performing countries prepare teachers for the classroom. These four systems arm teachers with a rich understanding of the subject areas they will teach and Read more about Borrowing Teacher Preparation Ideas from Top-Performing Countries[…]
The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings has released the 16th annual Brown Center Report (BCR) on American Education by Tom Loveless. The 2017 BCR investigates three issues that are relevant to the current dialogue on U.S. education. Part I analyzes the changing scores of American students on two international tests; Part II revisits Read more about How well are American Students Learning?[…]
Every three years, half a million 15-year-olds in 69 countries take a two-hour test designed to gauge their ability to think. Unlike other exams, the PISA, as it is known, does not assess what teenagers have memorized. Instead, it asks them to solve problems they haven’t seen before, to identify patterns that are not obvious Read more about What America Can Learn About Smart Schools in Other Countries[…]
Marc Tucker recently penned a letter to President-Elect Trump, outlining the importance of education to the American economy. Portions of it appear below: Dear President-Elect Trump, People are counting on you because you told them that you can restore their jobs and their incomes, and, most important, their pride and self-respect. The most important reason Read more about Dear President-Elect Trump[…]
A new report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, No Time to Lose: How to Build a World-Class Education System State by State, wastes no time in getting to the point. “The bad news,” it says in the very first sentence, “is most state education systems are falling dangerously behind the world in a Read more about No Time to Lose: An Urgent Call to Action[…]
Teacher compensation matters for attracting and retaining effective educators, however, the U.S. pays teachers less than most industrialized countries pay their teachers. The Education Commission of the States recently released an overview of the various approaches to teacher compensation being used by American states as well as a summary of the research supporting these approaches: Read more about August Issue Brief: Teacher Compensation[…]
To understand how to turn around a failing school quickly, using as few resources as possible, Alex Hill, Liz Mellon, Jules Goddard and Ben Laker studied changes made by 160 UK academies after they were put into remedial measures by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED) up to seven years Read more about How to Turn Around a Failing School[…]
Sarah Sparks, writing for Education Week, explores the differences in teacher preparation for American elementary school teachers compared with teachers in four high-performing countries. Excerpts from her article appear below: U.S. elementary-grade teachers get far less training than teachers in high-achieving countries for deep understanding of the foundational math, reading, and science content they teach. Read more about Elementary Teacher Preparation in Top-Performing Countries[…]
Dick Startz, in the Brookings blog, provides comparative information on teacher pay around the world. It turns out, the U.S. doesn’t look so generous. Following are excerpts from the blog: American teachers are underpaid. More specifically, American teachers are underpaid when compared to teachers in the nations we compete with. Let me begin with a Read more about Teacher Pay Around the World[…]
In a two part blog on the best ways to organize an educational system, Mark Tucker outlines his vision and details the specific methods that can be used to achieve this vision. Mr. Tucker writes: NCEE, the organization I head, runs the biggest and most successful program for training school principals in the United States, Read more about Organizations in Which Teachers Can Do Their Best Work[…]
A recent Education Week blog by Marc Tucker examines what it truly takes to get a first-rate teacher in front of every student, and compares the United States systems to the rest of the world. Some experts estimate that half of those who start a career in teaching are gone in five years, and those whose Read more about How to Get a First-Rate Teacher in Front of Every Student[…]