A New National Strategy for Improving Teaching in High-Need Schools

By James B. Hunt Jr. & Thomas H. Kean

Every year, educators, urban leaders, and parents bemoan the fact that students in our lowest-performing schools lack the teachers they need to meet ever-higher standards. Students in high-poverty secondary schools are nearly twice as likely to have teachers who do not have a degree in the subject they are teaching. The problem is worst in math and science, where schools struggle to compete with the private sector for top graduates.

A recent study by McKinsey & Co. of education in industrialized nations found that the top-performing countries put a premium on high-quality teachers: They select teachers carefully, pay them well, provide ongoing training and support, and give them time to work together. Finland’s teacher education system, for example, accepts just one in six applicants, and Singapore’s takes only one in five—some U.S. programs take virtually everyone who applies. Starting salaries for teachers in South Korea and Germany are 141 percent of their nations’ gross domestic product per capita, compared with 81 percent in the United States. And Japan’s novice teachers get up to two days a week of continued mentoring, with more collaborative-planning time for all teachers.

These findings reflect not just cultures that value learning, but countries that make education a top priority, committing real resources to their teachers and the mechanisms that assure high-quality...