Teaching seen as crucial in topping education rankings

Countries that outpace the U.S. in education employ many different strategies to help their students excel. They do, however, share one: They set high requirements to become a teacher, hold those who become them in high esteem and offer the instructors plenty of support.

Education leaders, including U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the nation's largest teacher unions, and officials from the highest scoring countries, met in New York on Wednesday and today to identify the best teaching practices.

The meeting comes after the recently released results of the Programme for International Student Assessment exam of 15-year-olds alarmed U.S. educators. Out of 34 countries, it ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.

"On the one hand, the United States has a very expensive education system in international standards," said Andreas Schleicher, who directs the exam. "On the other hand, it's one of the systems where teachers get the lowest salaries. "Then you ask yourself, how do you square those things?"

Schleicher co-authored a report released Wednesday in conjunction with the conference which concluded that for the U.S. to remain competitive, it must raise the status of the teaching profession. An additional report released by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, as well as the PISA exam, identified several effective practices observed in the top performing regions and countries:

They

draw teachers from the same pool of applicants as those from other selective professional careers.

Higher teacher salaries - rather than smaller class sizes - were a better indicator of student performance.

At the same time, it wasn't an exclusive means of attracting the best into the profession and must be accompanied by support from school leaders and a work environment that values professional judgment rather than formulas.

"They want to do knowledge work, not work in a prescriptive environment," Schleicher said.

Teachers are continually being trained and developing their skills as instructors.

Instructors are held accountable for student performance, but test results would be just one of a number of measures to determine student outcomes. Teachers welcome effective appraisal systems.

In many cases, countries with the highest student performance also had strong teacher unions. The unions also developed their research capacities, with international links and connections to ministries and universities.

Kasey Chambers Kelly Monaco Asia Argento Paulina Rubio Cindy Crawford