Applying and Adapting Lessons from
Top-Performing Systems

NCEE’s Blueprint for a High-Performing Education System organizes what we have learned and continue to learn from high-performing countries, provinces, states, districts, and schools about the ways they design their education systems to ensure that all students achieve at high levels. The NCEE Blueprint guides our work with policymakers in the U.S. to develop advice based on lessons from top performers adapted for their context.

We provide unparalleled expertise in how top performing systems are designed, and how to translate that design into U.S. state and regional contexts.

How We Develop Policy to Create High-Performing Education Systems

Our process combines a deep understanding of how the world’s top-performing education systems are designed with a hard look at your specific context and goals to create tailored, system-level solutions.

Context & Benchmarking

Analyze your state policy context against domestic and global top-performing systems.

Vision & Goals

Articulate a vision and build broad consensus on concrete policy goals for your state.

Implementation Strategy

Build a customized implementation strategy and a detailed plan to achieve your goals.

Supporting Groundbreaking Education Legislation

In 2016, the Maryland legislature established the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education to review and revise the state’s education funding formula and make policy recommendations that would enable Maryland’s students to perform at the level of students in the best-performing systems in the world.

NCEE supported the Commission’s examination of top-performing systems to see how they attained high levels of achievement and equity, analyzed the gaps between these systems and Maryland’s and advised how these policies and practices could be adapted to Maryland’s context. Based on the Commission’s work, in 2021 the Maryland legislature passed “The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future,” groundbreaking education legislation that will transform the state’s system and position Maryland’s students to compete with the world’s best.

William "Brit" Kirwan
Commission Chair
Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education
"We can’t get to where we need to be in K12 education unless states undertake significant reform like Maryland with best practices best systems… the resource for doing that is NCEE"

Providing State Legislators Valuable Insights

For more than six years, NCEE has partnered with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to provide advice and insights on the design of high-performing education systems to U.S. state legislators. Together, we organized the work of a study group of state legislators from across the country to investigate top-performing education systems around the world. The end result of that initial work was the landmark report, No Time to Lose: How to Build a World-Class Education System State by State.

NCEE, NCSL, and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) convened a second cohort of the study group in 2020 to study the common components underpinning the design of high-performing education systems. A bipartisan group of 16 state legislators and eight legislative staff members responsible for education in their states are convening monthly to conduct their study and plan to produce a second major report to state legislators in the coming year.

Michelle Exstrom
Group Director, Education Program
National Conference of State Legislatures
"NCEE has been instrumental in providing state legislators from across the country essential insights on the design of high-performing education systems. Our partnership has been critical to helping states develop strong education policy agendas. "

Contact Center on Policy Solutions

To learn more about our policy development and consulting for states and regions, contact Nathan Driskell, Associate Director, Policy Analysis and Development, at

ndriskell@ncee.org

 

Articulate and build broad consensus on a broad vision and concrete policy goals for your state.

FAQ

What kinds of consulting do you provide?

NCEE’s Center on Policy Solutions provides consulting support for states and regions to build high-performing education systems. Learn more about our services.

Our supports are focused on designing your system based on lessons from top-performing systems, but tailored to your unique context. How We Work

We tailor our consulting to suit the needs and goals of our partners. Contact Nathan Driskell, Associate Director of Policy Analysis and Development, for more information or to initiate a proposal.

NCEE’s Blueprint for a High-Performing Education System is a distillation of more than 30 years of research, identifying the common components underpinning the design of high-performing education systems. The NCEE Blueprint guides our work with states, districts, and schools as we work together to create high-quality education experience.

In addition to the Center on Policy Solutions consulting, NCEE offers a suite of leadership supports for schools and districts to help leaders address their systems’ most pressing needs. Find more at our Center on System Leadership.

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