McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, released the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top over two years ago, however, it’s just a relevant now as it was back then.
McKinsey studied 25 of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not. Among the 25 systems are 10 of the world’s top performers: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea. McKinsey analyzed what these top performers have in common that enable them to improve student outcomes.
In the next several posts, I will be writing about McKinsey’s findings. They are useful to policy makers interested in emulating top-performing school systems without copying them in their entirety.
In a nutshell:
The experiences of these top school systems suggests that three things matter most: 1) getting the right people to become teachers, 2) developing them into effective instructors and, 3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.