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British Inspectors Bring Instructional Focus to N.Y.C.

‘Quality reviews’ of data, decisionmaking part of new accountability plan.

New York

Roger Brown has a habit of asking the same question over and over again. In his polite but direct British manner, he challenges principals, teachers, and students to explain how they know if they’re improving.

“I suspect that you’re actually making very significant progress,” he said recently, over lunch, to a group of teachers at the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. “But can you prove that progress?”

Soon, all of New York City’s public schools will be similarly pressed. The nation’s largest school system has hired Mr. Brown’s employer—Cambridge Education, based in the English city of the same name—to help design a process for judging how well schools...