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

Linda Darling-Hammond is the 2023 National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) Policy Leader of the Year

Teaching in the Flat World 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.

Book Features:

• Provides an international context for the current state of the teaching profession in the United States, including recent reforms and their odds for improving teaching.
• Examines in depth the systems for preparing, developing, and supporting teachers in Finland, Ontario, and Singapore.
• Shows different ways to create, nourish, and maintain highly effective systems of teaching and leadership.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. Her books include Getting Teacher Evaluation Right and The Flat World and Education, which won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award in Education. She received the 2022 Yidan Prize for Education Research. She received the 2023 AERA Distinguished Public Service Award. She received the 2023 National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) Policy Leader of the Year. Robert Rothman is senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, DC. He is the author of Something in Common: The Common Core Standards and the Next Chapter in American Education.