Andreas Schleicher on Investing in Educational Success

New Zealand's decision to enhance career diversity, and to create different shaded career paths that are mirrored in the status, pay, and public recognition of teachers, is really an important step forward. It can help raise the profile of the teaching profession, and to attract the greatest talent to the most challenging classrooms and schools. And the approach is well in line with what we see in many of the world's top performing school systems. The bottom line is simple. Nowhere does the quality of the school system exceed the quality of its teachers. Top school systems pay attention to how they select and train their staff. They watch how they improve the performance of teachers who are struggling, and how to structure teachers' pay. They provide an environment in which teachers work together to frame good practice. And they provide intelligent pathways for teachers to grow in their careers, in ways that help meet school needs and also provide more opportunities, and better recognition for good teaching. The problem with many career systems is that they move great teachers out of the jobs they like most and they do best, namely teaching in the classroom. New Zealand's system addresses that well, by creating teaching positions that involve enhanced pedagogical responsibilities, through a competency and performance based teaching career ladder that recognises extra responsibilities, and that leads to greater vertical differentiation. That approach can help strengthen professional autonomy, within a collaborative culture, and it can support teachers to make innovations in pedagogy, to improve their own performance, but also that of their colleagues, and to pursue professional development that leads to stronger educational practice. Obviously the challenge is always to put those ideas successfully into practice. Transparent, robust, and fair mechanisms to evaluate the performance of teachers and school principals is going to be vital. And the key is to triangulate multiple measures, such as student test results, classroom observations, principal and peer appraisals, or teacher portfolios. In other words, the key is to combine great data and professional judgment in intelligent ways. And when it comes to appraising principals, you also want to consider things like instructional leadership, and competencies for monitoring, evaluation, and assessment. You may even want to consider wider professional responsibilities, such as working and planning in teams, working on projects between schools, managing and sharing leadership responsibilities, providing professional advice to parents, building community partnerships for learning, and so on. But what attracts me most in New Zealand's approach is that it could help get New Zealand's greatest challenge addressed. Namely, to invest resources where they can make most of the difference. You know, in education knowledge is very sticky. Knowledge about strong educational practices tends to stick where it is, and rarely spreads without very effective strategies, and powerful incentives for knowledge mobilisation and knowledge management. New Zealand's new career structure can help shift knowledge around pockets of innovation, and attract the most talented teachers to the most challenging classrooms, and to get the strongest principals into the toughest schools, to help schools and teachers build networks, and share resources, and work together to create new and innovative practice. And those are the ingredients to combine excellence with equity.