Making Minds Matter with Bill Costello » Teacher Status

America’s Shanghai Surprise

Bill Costello — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:51:48 +0000

American students are lagging significantly behind their peers from several countries in Europe and Asia according to new results from a key international assessment. They are the furthest behind students from the Chinese city of Shanghai, who received the top international test scores in math, science, and reading.

“We have to see this as a wake-up [...]

S. Korean Teachers Reach for the SKY

Bill Costello — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:01:56 +0000

Within South Korea, the three most prestigious universities are Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. Collectively, they are referred to by the acronym SKY.

Graduating from a SKY university often leads to a prestigious job with a high salary—especially if the graduate is in the field of education. Opinion polls show that South Koreans [...]

Teaching Benefits in S. Korea

Bill Costello — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:34:55 +0000

In South Korea, teaching is more than just a high-status profession with a high starting salary; it’s also one of the most stable careers.

Lee Sang Min, assistant professor of education at Korea University, said: “After the economic crisis in 1997, most Koreans considered stability as the most important thing when choosing a job. Therefore, many [...]

Rock Star Teacher

Bill Costello — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:01:14 +0000

In education-obsessed South Korea, the potential for earning a lot of money as a teacher is great. For example, 46-year-old math instructor and cram school tutor Woo Hyeong-cheol makes $4 million a year teaching Web-based classes. His salary is higher than most of the top professional baseball players in South Korea. And he’s just as [...]

Teaching Viewed as High-Status in S. Korea

Bill Costello — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:42:42 +0000

Opinion polls show that South Koreans view teachers as high-status professionals who make greater contributions to society than any other professionals.

South Korea does two things to raise the status of teaching as a profession. First, it makes entry to teacher training very selective. Teachers are recruited from the top 5 percent of each cohort graduate [...]

McKinsey Report, Part VII

Bill Costello — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:30:41 +0000

This is the seventh part in a series I’ve been writing this week about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that mentions the [...]

McKinsey Report, Part V

Bill Costello — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:27:50 +0000

This is the fifth part in a series I’ve been writing this week about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that explains the [...]

McKinsey Report, Part IV

Bill Costello — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:19:16 +0000

This is the fourth part in a series I’ve been writing this week about the report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, which is an analysis of the world’s school systems to find out why some schools succeed and others do not.

Today, my focus is on the section of the report that explains how [...]