Marc Tucker was president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. For two decades, his research focused on the policies and practices of the countries with the best education systems. This blog is no longer being updated.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Accountability: What the Top Performers Do
Marc Tucker continues the discussion on accountability and describes how the top-performing education systems use assessments and the results to help students and schools improve.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Accountability and Motivation
Continuing his blog series on accountability, Marc Tucker examines the premises that underlie different approaches to accountability system design.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
The Failure of Test-Based Accountability
In an ongoing series of posts about accountability, Marc Tucker discusses the damaging effects that test-based accountability has had on the profession of teaching.
Assessment
Opinion
NCLB, California and Accountability in All Its Guises
Marc Tucker explains that there is no evidence that test-based accountability, for schools or for teachers, actually improves student achievement.
Assessment
Opinion
Pasi Sahlberg on Finland's Recent PISA Results
Marc Tucker interviews Pasi Sahlberg about Finland's fall in the rankings on the 2012 PISA.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
What Now? Federal Education Policy Adrift
How the federal education agenda with an emphasis on on charters, federally imposing the Common Core initiative, teacher evaluation, and test based accountability is seeking solutions in all the wrong places and pushing policies that are not backed by evidence.
Federal
Opinion
Shanghai: Teacher Quality Strategies
A look at how Shanghai is able to both produce high quality beginning teachers at low cost and continuously improve the skills of teachers already in the workforce, leading not only to impressive performance on PISA but better student outcomes overall.
Assessment
Opinion
Tom Loveless on Hukou in China
Marc Tucker explains that while China's policies regarding migrant students are problematic, these are slowly being changed. In the meantime, Shanghai's education system still has much to teach the rest of the world.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
On Writing
Marc Tucker explains why US students have such poor writing skills and what we can do to change that.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
PISA Denial: Another Flavor
Marc Tucker refutes critics of PISA who claim that we can ignore the poor performance of US students because the test doesn't measure the things that really matter.
Student Achievement
Opinion
Response to the Brookings Institution Attack on PISA
Marc Tucker and Andreas Schleicher respond to charges from Tom Loveless that the PISA results for Shanghai are suspect.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Why Has US Education Performance Flatlined?
Marc Tucker explains why American education flatlined in the 1970s while our international competitors continued to improve and now surpass us.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
PISA On the Teacher as Professional
Marc Tucker explains how fundamental changes in the way schools are managed could both attract better teachers and enable them to do their best work.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
The Meaning of PISA
Marc Tucker explains how the results of the latest PISA assessment ought to inform America's education policy reform agenda: we should be basing it on the strategies employed by the top performing education systems in the world.