Creating Education Success at Home

By Marc Tucker

Despite the fact that the United States spends more per student on elementary and secondary education than any other nation except Luxembourg, students in a growing number of nations outperform our students. Our organization, the National Center on Education and the Economy , has researched the education systems of the top-performing nations for more than 20 years to find out how they do it. It turns out the explanation is pretty straightforward.

First, most of these top-10 nations put more money behind their hardest-to-educate students than those who are easier to educate. Second, most have developed world-class academic standards for their students, a curriculum to match the standards, and high-quality examinations (not cheap multiple-choice tests) and instructional materials based on that curriculum. And teachers are prepared to teach the required curriculum, though they are treated like professionals and therefore often have considerable discretion in their practice.

Most important, these nations have focused on raising the quality of their teaching forces. They greatly raised the standards for entering their schools of education to the point that they are accepting only one applicant for every six to 10 young people who apply. They insist all teachers at least minor in the subjects they plan to teach at the elementary level and major in those subjects at the secondary level. They also make sure teachers know their craft; aspiring teachers often serve under the supervision of a master teacher for a year before beginning full-time teaching. Some top performers, like Finland and Singapore, moved teacher education from their third-tier institutions into their research universities. And the top performers ensure initial pay for teachers is comparable to initial pay in the...