The World's Best-Performing Education Systems

The author explores the kinds of changes now taking place that appear to have the most important implications for the design of national education systems, and challenges some of the directions that are being taken. He suggests strategies that nations could use to greatly improve education outcomes for the wide range of young people, at a cost that countries could afford, and explores the possibilities and pitfalls of the politics of implementing those strategies. He emphasises that, while this is not a treatise, it is the ‘sketch of a treatise’, an attempt to lay out a framework for a debate that he believes is overdue and urgently needed. If it succeeds in stimulating the beginning of that debate,
he argues, it will have served its purpose.

Marc S Tucker is the founder and CEO Emeritus of the National Center on Education and the Economy in Washington, DC. His professional career has been focused on learning how the world’s top-performing education systems produce high student performance with equity
and efficiency, and on helping the United States and other nations improve their performance based on that research. He has served in senior positions in the United States government, private foundations and the private sector. He led the creation of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, The Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, New Standards, America’s Choice and the National Institute for School Leadership, among other initiatives. Tucker’s books include Thinking for a Living, Education and the Wealth of Nations – co-authored with Ray Marshall – which won the Sidney Hillman prize and was named by Business Week as one of the 10 best books of the year. Tucker has advised and consulted with governments all over the world. He was awarded the James Bryant Conant prize of the Education Commission of the States in 2014.