I sat in on an enlightening forum on international education yesterday over at the National Press Club. Two of the featured speakers were from academic superpowers: Ms. Low Khah Gek, the director of curriculum, planning, and development for the Ministry of Education in Singapore; and Timo Lankinen, director general of the National Board of Education in Finland. They spoke to a crowd of state officials and corporate leaders, who were curious about what we could learn from these high-flying nations.
Ms. Gek and Mr. Lankinen offered interesting details and thoughts about finding, keeping, and rewarding high-quality teachers, and about high-stakes testing. Some aspects of these two systems were already familiar to me, but it was worth hearing these two speakers’ firsthand accounts, which you can read more about in my EdWeek story.