About the Study
The world is changing and so are its schools. In recognition of the need to prepare students for an evolving and increasingly interconnected world, a growing number of countries have remodeled their education systems to deliver an education built for the 21st century, producing higher achievement and greater equity than the U.S.
How are they doing it?
Among the strategies these systems have pursued, none have been more important than the policies they have developed to ensure that high-quality teaching takes place in every classroom, in every school, for every child.
Empowered Educators is a landmark, international comparative study of teacher and teaching quality in the world’s top-performing education systems.
With the support of the Center on International Benchmarking at the National Center on Education and the Economy, one of the world’s preeminent education researchers, Linda Darling-Hammond launched the work from the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) at Stanford University. Darling-Hammond, now leading the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) in Palo Alto, CA, drew together a global team of education researchers in the three-year study, producing unparalleled insights for U.S. educators, researchers and policymakers.
The researchers investigated seven jurisdictions across four continents. Their findings reveal two principle answers to the central question of how other countries have surpassed the U.S. in preparing their students to compete in the 21st century global economy:
- First, these countries have focused on building effective systems, opting not to chase silver bullets or short-term, narrow-focused solutions.
- Second, these countries have held at the core of their work a commitment to professionalizing teaching as an occupation.
The centerpiece of the study, Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World from Jossey-Bass publishers, is a cross-cutting analysis of all seven systems. Also from Jossey-Bass are five e-books offering deep dives into each jurisdiction studied.
For policymakers and researchers, CIEB and NCEE is proud to host a series of in-depth policy and country briefs as well as a rich online resource library featuring interviews with international education leaders and original tools and documents from the countries studied.
