U.S. Reforms Out of Sync With Top-Performing Nations' Education Path

Study urges enhancing teaching profession

The United States’ education system is neither coherent nor likely to see great improvements based on its current attempts at reform, a report released this week by the National Center on Education and the Economy concludes.

The NCEE report pushes further than other recent reports on the topic by laying out an ambitious agenda for the United States it says reflects the education practices in countries or states that have made rapid progress on international assessments, including Finland, Singapore, Japan, Shanghai, and Ontario, Canada.

Among other measures, the report outlines a less-frequent system of standardized student testing; a statewide funding-equity model that prioritizes the neediest students, rather than local distribution of resources; and greater emphasis on...