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How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better

How does a school system with poor performance become good? And how does one with good performance become excellent?

November 2010 | By Mona Mourshed, Chinezi Chijioke, and Michael Barber
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Our latest education report is the follow-up to the 2007 publication “How the world’s best performing school systems come out on top,” in which we examined the common attributes of high-performing school systems.

We compiled what we believe is the most comprehensive analysis of global school system reform ever assembled. This report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems everywhere as well as what it really takes to achieve significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes.

In this new report, “How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better,” we analyzed 20 systems from around the world, all with improving but differing levels of performance, examining how each has achieved significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes, as measured by international and national assessments.

Based on more than 200 interviews with system stakeholders and analysis of some 600 interventions carried out by these systems, this report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems elsewhere as they move from poor to fair to good to great to excellent performance.

The systems we studied were Armenia, Aspire (a U.S. charter school system), Boston (Massachusetts), Chile, England, Ghana, Hong Kong, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Long Beach (California), Madhya Pradesh (India), Minas Gerais (Brazil), Ontario (Canada), Poland, Saxony (Germany), Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, and Western Cape (South Africa).

 

Webinar: How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better

Held Monday, November 29, 2010.
> Watch the webinar (links offsite)

Speakers/Moderators:

Sir Michael BarberPartner, McKinsey & Company
Sir Michael Barber is head of McKinsey’s Global Education Practice and Founder of the Education Delivery Institute in Washington, D.C., which advises governments in the US on implementation of education reform. He has been working on major challenges of performance, organization and reform in government and the public services, especially education, in the U.S., U.K. and other countries. Prior to joining McKinsey he was (from 2001) Chief Adviser on Delivery to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. As Head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit he was responsible for the oversight of implementation of the Prime Minister’s priority programs in health, education, transport, policing, the criminal justice system and asylum/immigration.
Dr. Mona MourshedPartner, McKinsey & Company
Mona is a Partner with McKinsey & Company, where she co-leads the global education practice. Her work over the past six years focuses on education reform around the world, spanning school systems, vocational programs, and higher education. She is co-author of McKinsey’s 2007 global education report ‘How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top’, and is the lead author of McKinsey’s latest report ‘How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better.’ She was selected as a global ‘Rising Talent’ by JP Morgan and the Women’s Forum 2007. Mona holds a Ph.D. in economic development from MIT and a B.A. from Stanford University.

 

Panelists:

Professor Michael FullanSpecial Advisor on Education to the Premier, Ontario, Canada
Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Recognized as a worldwide authority on educational reform, Michael is engaged in training, consulting, and evaluating change projects around the world and his books have been published in many languages. Michael Fullan is currently Special Adviser to the Premier and Minister of Education in Ontario. His book, Leading in a Culture of Change was awarded the 2002 Book of the Year Award by the National Staff Development Council and Breakthrough (with Peter Hill and Carmel Crévola) won the 2006 Book of the Year Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Mr. Brian SchreuderDeputy Director-General, Curriculum Management, Western Cape, South Africa
Brian Schreuder is the Deputy Director-General of Curriculum and Assessment Management for the Western Cape Education Department in South Africa. In this role, Brian develops the curriculum for various schooling phases, including the FET and GET phases, as well as the ECD, ABET, ELSEN and FET Colleges. He also is responsible for implementing the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, which works towards the overall improvement of curriculum delivery and learning outcomes in schools. Prior to his current role, Brian served as the Deputy Director-General of Education Planning and Development. He has also authored a number of Physical Science, Natural Science and Technology textbooks and contributed chapters and articles to various books and journals. He has served and still serves on the boards of various organizations including the South African Certification Council, UMALUSI (Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training) and the Interactive Science Foundation and Die Burger Kersfonds.
Dr. Catherine K K ChanDeputy Secretary, Education Bureau, Hong Kong
Dr. Catherine K K Chan is Deputy Secretary (Curriculum and Quality Assurance) of the Education Bureau in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Dr. Chan has played a key role in leading the school curriculum reform since 2001, and in shaping the design and strategies for implementing the new senior secondary academic structure that started in 2009. Before joining the government in 1998 as head of the Curriculum Development Institute, Dr Chan was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. Her areas of research interest include curriculum policies, design and evaluation as well as teacher education.

 

Comments

  • http://www.verticaltutoring.org Peter A Barnard

    This is a vastly improved report which builds well on the previous one and where the Barber touch is noticeable. For me there is only one conclusion and action for western culture. This is contained holistically within the organisational process of Vertical Tutoring. So well done…pleased to at last meet up.

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  • Shona Walton

    I showed Mona Mourshed’s introduction to 40+ secondary school and college principals and education officers in July and the sound of pennies dropping was muted but gratifying. Keep up the good work.

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  • Learne Dunne

    How might these findings and models be applied to smaller systems, eg districts within larger systems eg, state department? Can a larger system contain a differentiated model inside itself?

  • http://www.facebook.com/rashid.herrera Rashid Herrera

    Very informative information, I´m working in the Costa Rican education ( http://www.drepz.ed.cr ) and we are concerned in how we can improve the mediation proccess in the class.
    Very intersting.

  • tinrukna

    the way i think we could import our kid education but the different place we have to act different like in USA kid over here have right a change go school here but the don’t to go see we have to fix problem here but over there in Asian or Afican in the poor country the don’t have the right if they don’t have money because they have to pay for them go to school so how are we could fix we have to folk it on one step at time see wish place is help first and we go from the we have a lot of help if we willing to help each other but before we was doing it cause war or we just don’t want i know how you guy think so i’m different cause i new kid but we have look at our kid 15year or 30 year for now the how i look so if you guy and girl have any idea is better one thank you

  • Franck Commonsens

    wow! You need to base yourself with ALL of the other countries, not a selected few.

    It is EASY to excel…when compared with some of the lowest.
    USA? Yes, they have an excellent rating in number of “diplomas holders”..problem is that those “diploma” are empty making the holders almost as dumb as rocks.

    So the question REALLY should be: is the number of diploma holders is more important than the quality of each graduates?

    NO. Quality is better than Quantity.

    Am simply fed up to see PHD holders who cannot write properly, can’t even do basic math without a computer and who are capable to “regurgitate” properly the class book without understanding any of it.

  • Daroot

    I appreciated the report and Mourshed’s assertion that teachers are ready. However, if Arne Duncan continues to harass teachers through top-down management dictates, smart people will not choose to be teachers. When protocols become policy, creative and dedicated teachers are excluded from making choices for site-based decisions. Our national vocabulary regarding accountability reflects a punitive system rather than the collective responsibility that the report deems so necessary. So glad to hear about the work that Long Beach has been doing to improve education. I dropped out of public K-12 education after 2 decades because of the prescriptive curriculum and “managing” of teachers through monitoring. An yes, my Title I students did pass the tests and actually enjoyed a rich curriculum.

  • Allalou

    Please inspire from this article how to do better.
    Very useful to improve the best practices in education.

    Dr Allalou

  • http://www.oii-edu.ca/ Ontario Secondary School

    This is a compiled school system, we believe is the most comprehensive analysis of global school system reform ever assembled.

  • Macityetis

    I completely agree on the analysis of the situation. However, is it really true that the conventional education systems are getting better? They might be obviously improving with all other improvements like in technology or socially. But still, is there no more radical solutions that could be applied ? http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html