Teacher and Leader Effectiveness in High-Performing Education Systems

Posted by on March 27, 2011

It takes a system

A new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education examines highly effective lessons from education systems that develop and support teachers and leaders in Finland, Ontario, and Singapore. These jurisdictions were chosen because they have attained among the highest and most equitable performance in the world on international assessments, and because they attribute their success to their efforts to recruit, prepare, develop, and retain highly effective educators. They are comparable in population to mid-sized U.S. states. The report outlines five lessons learned from these three jurisdictions’ systems. These are a systemic approach; strong teacher recruitment and preparation; attractive teaching conditions; continuous support for teacher learning; and proactive leadership development. The examples also show how these policies can be implemented in different contexts. The policies of these nations are not expected to be imported wholesale into the United States, the report notes. Rather, these policies can expand U.S. policymakers’ views of what is possible. In tandem with the report, the Alliance for Excellent Education also released an issue brief that includes a version of the report’s overview chapter.

See the report: http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/reports
See the brief: http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/issue_policy_briefs