Teaching in the Flat World: Learning from High-Performing Systems

by Linda Darling-Hammond, Robert Rothman

This book will help school systems improve their teacher workforce by drawing important lessons from nations with high-performing educational systems, as well as from successful state experiments in the United States. The authors examine common features and differences in the approaches of high-performing systems that made education a top priority and developed high-leverage strategies to meet their goals. Their varied solutions offer valuable ideas for how to create a strong teacher and school administrator corps from recruitment and preparation through induction, professional development, evaluation, and career advancement into leadership roles. Chapters focusing on systems in Finland, Ontario, and Singapore are coauthored by local scholars with extensive knowledge of the history and current status of policy and practice in their nation. A final chapter highlights attributes that are absolutely necessary for any education system to flourish. The book will be useful to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers interested in strengthening the quality of teaching.

Genres: Education

120 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2015

About the author

Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute, is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University. She is the award-winning author of numerous books including Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning, and Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass).

Reviews

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this book for class. It does not read like a textbook. It was more of a narrative from countries with high-performing results in education. Each country shared specific details about what makes their educational system works well.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read that serves as a primer for the core issues I spend my working hours investigating, and a good introduction to the literature on comparisons of international education systems. Nothing new that isn't in Surpassing Shanghai or The Global Fourth Way, but it's a good place to start before taking deeper dives into those earlier publications.