What the US Presidential Candidates Should Be Talking About
Three questions regarding education the 2012 presidential hopefuls should be pressed on.
McKinsey & Company has just published a report on how to attract young people with strong academic backgrounds to the teaching profession. Although the report is aimed at the United States, it outlines how three of the world’s top-performing education systems, (Finland, Singapore and South Korea) manage to recruit 100 percent of their incoming teachers from the top third of their academic cohort.
Explanations include making admission to teacher training programs—and to teaching positions—highly selective, establishing rigorous performance management systems, offering opportunities for professional advancement, increasing the prestige of the teaching profession and offering competitive salaries. The report cautions that success in any particular country will require considerable research and experimentation.
Three questions regarding education the 2012 presidential hopefuls should be pressed on.
Former Nicaraguan Minister of Education Humberto Belli recently shared with us his article published in La Prensa on the subject of teacher pay. Belli co-chaired the Task Force on Education in Central America that produced PREAL’s Central American Regional Report Card in 2007 and was a member of the advisory committee for the Nicaragua national…
Debate on the pros and cons of dismissing the lowest-performing teachers in US schools.