Use data to build better schools
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0:01 - 0:04Radical openness is still a distant future
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0:04 - 0:06in the field of school education.
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0:06 - 0:08We have such a hard time figuring out
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0:08 - 0:12that learning is not a place but an activity.
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0:12 - 0:16But I want to tell you the story of PISA,
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0:16 - 0:18OECD's test to measure the knowledge and skills
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0:18 - 0:20of 15-year-olds around the world,
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0:20 - 0:24and it's really a story of how international comparisons
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0:24 - 0:27have globalized the field of education that we usually treat
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0:27 - 0:30as an affair of domestic policy.
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0:30 - 0:33Look at how the world looked in the 1960s,
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0:33 - 0:35in terms of the proportion of people
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0:35 - 0:37who had completed high school.
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0:37 - 0:41You can see the United States ahead of everyone else,
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0:41 - 0:44and much of the economic success of the United States
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0:44 - 0:47draws on its long-standing advantage
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0:47 - 0:49as the first mover in education.
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0:49 - 0:53But in the 1970s, some countries caught up.
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0:53 - 0:55In the 1980s, the global expansion
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0:55 - 0:58of the talent pool continued.
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0:58 - 1:02And the world didn't stop in the 1990s.
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1:02 - 1:04So in the '60s, the U.S. was first.
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1:04 - 1:07In the '90s, it was 13th,
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1:07 - 1:09and not because standards had fallen,
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1:09 - 1:13but because they had risen so much faster elsewhere.
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1:13 - 1:16Korea shows you what's possible in education.
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1:16 - 1:19Two generations ago, Korea had the standard of living
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1:19 - 1:22of Afghanistan today,
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1:22 - 1:26and was one of the lowest education performers.
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1:26 - 1:31Today, every young Korean finishes high school.
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1:31 - 1:34So this tells us that, in a global economy,
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1:34 - 1:39it is no longer national improvement that's the benchmark for success,
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1:39 - 1:44but the best performing education systems internationally.
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1:44 - 1:47The trouble is that
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1:47 - 1:48measuring how much time people spend in school
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1:48 - 1:50or what degree they have got is not always
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1:50 - 1:55a good way of seeing what they can actually do.
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1:55 - 1:59Look at the toxic mix of unemployed graduates on our streets,
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1:59 - 2:01while employers say they cannot find the people
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2:01 - 2:05with the skills they need.
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2:05 - 2:09And that tells you that better degrees don't automatically translate
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2:09 - 2:13into better skills and better jobs and better lives.
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2:13 - 2:16So with PISA, we try to change this
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2:16 - 2:18by measuring the knowledge and skills
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2:18 - 2:21of people directly.
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2:21 - 2:23And we took a very special angle to this.
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2:23 - 2:25We were less interested in whether students can simply
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2:25 - 2:29reproduce what they have learned in school,
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2:29 - 2:31but we wanted to test whether they can extrapolate
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2:31 - 2:33from what they know
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2:33 - 2:37and apply their knowledge in novel situations.
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2:37 - 2:40Now, some people have criticized us for this.
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2:40 - 2:42They say, you know, such a way of measuring outcomes
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2:42 - 2:45is terribly unfair to people, because we test students
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2:45 - 2:48with problems they haven't seen before.
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2:48 - 2:50But if you take that logic, you know,
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2:50 - 2:53you should consider life unfair, because
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2:53 - 2:56the test of truth in life is not whether we can remember
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2:56 - 2:57what we learned in school,
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2:57 - 3:00but whether we are prepared for change,
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3:00 - 3:03whether we are prepared for jobs that haven't been created,
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3:03 - 3:05to use technologies that haven't been invented,
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3:05 - 3:10to solve problems we just can't anticipate today.
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3:10 - 3:12And once hotly contested,
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3:12 - 3:16our way of measuring outcomes has actually quickly become the standard.
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3:16 - 3:18In our latest assessment in 2009,
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3:18 - 3:21we measured 74 school systems
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3:21 - 3:25that together cover 87 percent of the economy.
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3:25 - 3:28This chart shows you the performance of countries.
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3:28 - 3:31In red, sort of below OECD average.
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3:31 - 3:35Yellow is so-so, and in green are the countries doing really well.
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3:35 - 3:39You can see Shanghai, Korea, Singapore in Asia;
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3:39 - 3:41Finland in Europe;
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3:41 - 3:45Canada in North America doing really well.
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3:45 - 3:48You can also see that there is a gap of almost
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3:48 - 3:50three and a half school years between
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3:50 - 3:5315-year-olds in Shanghai and 15-year-olds in Chile,
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3:53 - 3:56and the gap grows to seven school years
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3:56 - 3:59when you include the countries with really poor performance.
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3:59 - 4:02There's a world of difference in the way in which
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4:02 - 4:07young people are prepared for today's economy.
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4:07 - 4:11But I want to introduce a second important dimension
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4:11 - 4:13into this picture.
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4:13 - 4:17Educators like to talk about equity.
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4:17 - 4:21With PISA, we wanted to measure how they actually deliver equity,
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4:21 - 4:23in terms of ensuring that people
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4:23 - 4:27from different social backgrounds have equal chances.
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4:27 - 4:28And we see that in some countries, the impact
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4:28 - 4:30of social background on learning outcomes
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4:30 - 4:31is very, very strong.
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4:31 - 4:34Opportunities are unequally distributed.
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4:34 - 4:38A lot of potential of young children is wasted.
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4:38 - 4:41We see in other countries that it matters much less
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4:41 - 4:44into which social context you're born.
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4:44 - 4:47We all want to be there, in the upper right quadrant,
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4:47 - 4:51where performance is strong and learning opportunities are equally distributed.
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4:51 - 4:54Nobody, and no country, can afford to be there,
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4:54 - 4:55where performance is poor
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4:55 - 4:59and there are large social disparities.
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4:59 - 5:01And then we can debate, you know, is it better
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5:01 - 5:03to be there, where performance is strong
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5:03 - 5:06at the price of large disparities?
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5:06 - 5:11Or do we want to focus on equity and accept mediocrity?
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5:11 - 5:14But actually, if you look at how countries come out on this picture,
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5:14 - 5:17you see there are a lot of countries that actually
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5:17 - 5:22are combining excellence with equity.
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5:22 - 5:24In fact, one of the most important lessons from this comparison
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5:24 - 5:27is that you don't have to compromise equity
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5:27 - 5:30to achieve excellence.
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5:30 - 5:33These countries have moved on from providing excellence
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5:33 - 5:36for just some to providing excellence for all,
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5:36 - 5:38a very important lesson.
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5:38 - 5:43And that also challenges the paradigms of many school systems
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5:43 - 5:47that believe they are mainly there to sort people.
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5:47 - 5:50And ever since those results came out, policymakers,
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5:50 - 5:52educators, researchers from around the world
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5:52 - 5:53have tried to figure out
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5:53 - 5:57what's behind the success of those systems.
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5:57 - 5:58But let's step back for a moment
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5:58 - 6:01and focus on the countries that actually started PISA,
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6:01 - 6:04and I'm giving them a colored bubble now.
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6:04 - 6:07And I'm making the size of the bubble
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6:07 - 6:09proportional
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6:09 - 6:13to the amount of money that countries spent on students.
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6:13 - 6:14If money would tell you everything
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6:14 - 6:16about the quality of learning outcomes,
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6:16 - 6:20you would find all the large bubbles at the top, no?
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6:20 - 6:22But that's not what you see.
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6:22 - 6:25Spending per student only explains about,
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6:25 - 6:27well, less than 20 percent
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6:27 - 6:30of the performance variation among countries,
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6:30 - 6:33and Luxembourg, for example, the most expensive system,
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6:33 - 6:35doesn't do particularly well.
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6:35 - 6:37What you see is that two countries with similar spending
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6:37 - 6:39achieve very different results.
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6:39 - 6:44You also see -- and I think that's one of the most encouraging findings --
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6:44 - 6:47that we no longer live in a world that is neatly divided
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6:47 - 6:50between rich and well-educated countries,
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6:50 - 6:52and poor and badly-educated ones,
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6:52 - 6:56a very, very important lesson.
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6:56 - 6:58Let's look at this in greater detail.
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6:58 - 7:00The red dot shows you
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7:00 - 7:05spending per student relative to a country's wealth.
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7:05 - 7:08One way you can spend money is by paying teachers well,
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7:08 - 7:10and you can see Korea investing a lot
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7:10 - 7:13in attracting the best people into the teaching profession.
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7:13 - 7:15And Korea also invests into long school days,
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7:15 - 7:18which drives up costs further.
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7:18 - 7:20Last but not least, Koreans want their teachers
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7:20 - 7:22not only to teach but also to develop.
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7:22 - 7:24They invest in professional development and collaboration
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7:24 - 7:27and many other things.
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7:27 - 7:28All that costs money.
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7:28 - 7:31How can Korea afford all of this?
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7:31 - 7:35The answer is, students in Korea learn in large classes.
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7:35 - 7:39This is the blue bar which is driving costs down.
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7:39 - 7:42You go to the next country on the list, Luxembourg,
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7:42 - 7:45and you can see the red dot is exactly where it is for Korea,
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7:45 - 7:49so Luxembourg spends the same per student as Korea does.
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7:49 - 7:51But, you know, parents and teachers and policymakers
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7:51 - 7:54in Luxembourg all like small classes.
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7:54 - 7:57You know, it's very pleasant to walk into a small class.
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7:57 - 7:59So they have invested all their money into there,
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7:59 - 8:02and the blue bar, class size, is driving costs up.
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8:02 - 8:06But even Luxembourg can spend its money only once,
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8:06 - 8:08and the price for this is that
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8:08 - 8:10teachers are not paid particularly well.
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8:10 - 8:13Students don't have long hours of learning.
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8:13 - 8:16And basically, teachers have little time to do anything else than teaching.
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8:16 - 8:20So you can see two countries spent their money very differently,
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8:20 - 8:22and actually how they spent their money
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8:22 - 8:28matters a lot more than how much they invest in education.
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8:28 - 8:31Let's go back to the year 2000.
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8:31 - 8:35Remember, that was the year before the iPod was invented.
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8:35 - 8:37This is how the world looked then
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8:37 - 8:41in terms of PISA performance.
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8:41 - 8:44The first thing you can see is that the bubbles were a lot smaller, no?
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8:44 - 8:46We spent a lot less on education,
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8:46 - 8:48about 35 percent less on education.
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8:48 - 8:52So you ask yourself, if education has become so much more expensive,
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8:52 - 8:55has it become so much better?
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8:55 - 8:58And the bitter truth really is that, you know,
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8:58 - 9:00not in many countries.
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9:00 - 9:02But there are some countries which have seen
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9:02 - 9:05impressive improvements.
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9:05 - 9:09Germany, my own country, in the year 2000,
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9:09 - 9:11featured in the lower quadrant,
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9:11 - 9:14below average performance, large social disparities.
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9:14 - 9:16And remember, Germany, we used to be one of those countries
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9:16 - 9:20that comes out very well when you just count people who have degrees.
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9:20 - 9:22Very disappointing results.
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9:22 - 9:24People were stunned by the results.
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9:24 - 9:28And for the very first time, the public debate in Germany
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9:28 - 9:32was dominated for months by education,
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9:32 - 9:35not tax, not other kinds of issues, but education
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9:35 - 9:37was the center of the public debate.
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9:37 - 9:40And then policymakers began to respond to this.
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9:40 - 9:45The federal government dramatically raised its investment in education.
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9:45 - 9:48A lot was done to increase the life chances of students
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9:48 - 9:51with an immigrant background or from social disadvantage.
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9:51 - 9:56And what's really interesting is that this wasn't just about
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9:56 - 10:00optimizing existing policies,
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10:00 - 10:03but data transformed some of the beliefs and paradigms
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10:03 - 10:05underlying German education.
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10:05 - 10:09For example, traditionally, the education of the very young children
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10:09 - 10:11was seen as the business of families, and you would have cases
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10:11 - 10:14where women were seen as neglecting their family responsibilities
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10:14 - 10:17when they sent their children to kindergarten.
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10:17 - 10:20PISA has transformed that debate,
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10:20 - 10:23and pushed early childhood education right at the center
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10:23 - 10:25of public policy in Germany.
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10:25 - 10:29Or traditionally, the German education divides children
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10:29 - 10:32at the age of 10, very young children,
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10:32 - 10:36between those deemed to pursue careers of knowledge workers
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10:36 - 10:39and those who would end up working for the knowledge workers,
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10:39 - 10:42and that mainly along socioeconomic lines,
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10:42 - 10:46and that paradigm is being challenged now too.
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10:46 - 10:48A lot of change.
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10:48 - 10:51And the good news is, nine years later,
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10:51 - 10:54you can see improvements in quality and equity.
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10:54 - 10:57People have taken up the challenge, done something about it.
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10:57 - 10:59Or take Korea, at the other end of the spectrum.
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10:59 - 11:01In the year 2000, Korea did already very well,
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11:01 - 11:05but the Koreans were concerned that only a small share
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11:05 - 11:09of their students achieved the really high levels of excellence.
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11:09 - 11:11They took up the challenge,
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11:11 - 11:14and Korea was able to double the proportion of students
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11:14 - 11:19achieving excellence in one decade in the field of reading.
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11:19 - 11:21Well, if you only focus on your brightest students,
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11:21 - 11:23you know what happens is disparities grow,
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11:23 - 11:27and you can see this bubble moving slightly to the other direction,
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11:27 - 11:30but still, an impressive improvement.
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11:30 - 11:32A major overhaul of Poland's education
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11:32 - 11:36helped to dramatically reduce between variability among schools,
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11:36 - 11:39turn around many of the lowest-performing schools,
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11:39 - 11:43and raise performance by over half a school year.
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11:43 - 11:45And you can see other countries as well.
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11:45 - 11:48Portugal was able to consolidate its fragmented school system,
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11:48 - 11:51raise quality and improve equity,
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11:51 - 11:53and so did Hungary.
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11:53 - 11:57So what you can actually see, there's been a lot of change.
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11:57 - 11:59And even those people who complain and say that
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11:59 - 12:01the relative standing of countries
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12:01 - 12:05on something like PISA is just an artifact of culture,
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12:05 - 12:08of economic factors, of social issues,
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12:08 - 12:11of homogeneity of societies, and so on,
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12:11 - 12:15these people must now concede that education improvement is possible.
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12:15 - 12:19You know, Poland hasn't changed its culture.
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12:19 - 12:21It didn't change its economy. It didn't change
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12:21 - 12:23the compositions of its population.
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12:23 - 12:26It didn't fire its teachers. It changed its education policies
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12:26 - 12:29and practice. Very impressive.
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12:29 - 12:32And all that raises, of course, the question: What can we learn
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12:32 - 12:34from those countries in the green quadrant
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12:34 - 12:36who have achieved high levels of equity,
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12:36 - 12:40high levels of performance, and raised outcomes?
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12:40 - 12:44And, of course, the question is, can what works in one context
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12:44 - 12:46provide a model elsewhere?
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12:46 - 12:50Of course, you can't copy and paste education systems wholesale,
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12:50 - 12:54but these comparisons have identified a range of factors
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12:54 - 12:57that high-performing systems share.
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12:57 - 12:59Everybody agrees that education is important.
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12:59 - 13:01Everybody says that.
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13:01 - 13:05But the test of truth is, how do you weigh that priority
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13:05 - 13:07against other priorities?
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13:07 - 13:09How do countries pay their teachers
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13:09 - 13:12relative to other highly skilled workers?
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13:12 - 13:15Would you want your child to become a teacher
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13:15 - 13:17rather than a lawyer?
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13:17 - 13:19How do the media talk about schools and teachers?
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13:19 - 13:21Those are the critical questions, and what we have learned
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13:21 - 13:25from PISA is that, in high-performing education systems,
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13:25 - 13:29the leaders have convinced their citizens to make choices
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13:29 - 13:31that value education, their future,
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13:31 - 13:34more than consumption today.
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13:34 - 13:36And you know what's interesting? You won't believe it,
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13:36 - 13:39but there are countries in which the most attractive place
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13:39 - 13:42to be is not the shopping center but the school.
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13:42 - 13:44Those things really exist.
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13:44 - 13:46But placing a high value on education
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13:46 - 13:49is just part of the picture.
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13:49 - 13:52The other part is the belief that all children
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13:52 - 13:55are capable of success.
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13:55 - 13:57You have some countries where students
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13:57 - 13:59are segregated early in their ages.
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13:59 - 14:01You know, students are divided up,
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14:01 - 14:04reflecting the belief that only some children
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14:04 - 14:07can achieve world-class standards.
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14:07 - 14:11But usually that is linked to very strong social disparities.
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14:11 - 14:15If you go to Japan in Asia, or Finland in Europe,
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14:15 - 14:17parents and teachers in those countries
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14:17 - 14:21expect every student to succeed,
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14:21 - 14:24and you can see that actually mirrored in student behavior.
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14:24 - 14:27When we asked students what counts
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14:27 - 14:30for success in mathematics,
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14:30 - 14:32students in North America would typically tell us,
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14:32 - 14:34you know, it's all about talent.
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14:34 - 14:38If I'm not born as a genius in math, I'd better study something else.
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14:38 - 14:41Nine out of 10 Japanese students say
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14:41 - 14:45that it depends on my own investment, on my own effort,
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14:45 - 14:50and that tells you a lot about the system that is around them.
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14:50 - 14:55In the past, different students were taught in similar ways.
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14:55 - 14:58High performers on PISA embrace diversity
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14:58 - 15:02with differentiated pedagogical practices.
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15:02 - 15:04They realize that
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15:04 - 15:07ordinary students have extraordinary talents,
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15:07 - 15:10and they personalize learning opportunities.
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15:10 - 15:12High-performing systems also share
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15:12 - 15:16clear and ambitious standards across the entire spectrum.
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15:16 - 15:18Every student knows what matters.
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15:18 - 15:22Every student knows what's required to be successful.
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15:22 - 15:25And nowhere does the quality of an education system
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15:25 - 15:28exceed the quality of its teachers.
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15:28 - 15:31High-performing systems are very careful
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15:31 - 15:33in how they recruit and select their teachers
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15:33 - 15:35and how they train them.
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15:35 - 15:37They watch how they improve the performances of teachers
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15:37 - 15:40in difficulties who are struggling,
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15:40 - 15:43and how they structure teacher pay.
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15:43 - 15:46They provide an environment also in which teachers work together
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15:46 - 15:50to frame good practice.
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15:50 - 15:54And they provide intelligent pathways for teachers to grow
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15:54 - 15:56in their careers.
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15:56 - 15:58In bureaucratic school systems,
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15:58 - 16:00teachers are often left alone in classrooms
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16:00 - 16:03with a lot of prescription on what they should be teaching.
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16:03 - 16:06High-performing systems are very clear what good performance is.
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16:06 - 16:09They set very ambitious standards, but then they enable
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16:09 - 16:11their teachers to figure out,
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16:11 - 16:15what do I need to teach to my students today?
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16:15 - 16:19The past was about delivered wisdom in education.
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16:19 - 16:25Now the challenge is to enable user-generated wisdom.
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16:25 - 16:28High performers have moved on from professional
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16:28 - 16:32or from administrative forms of accountability and control --
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16:32 - 16:35sort of, how do you check whether people do what they're supposed to do in education --
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16:35 - 16:39to professional forms of work organization.
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16:39 - 16:43They enable their teachers to make innovations in pedagogy.
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16:43 - 16:45They provide them with the kind of development they need
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16:45 - 16:49to develop stronger pedagogical practices.
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16:49 - 16:55The goal of the past was standardization and compliance.
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16:55 - 16:58High-performing systems have made teachers
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16:58 - 17:01and school principals inventive.
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17:01 - 17:04In the past, the policy focus was on outcomes,
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17:04 - 17:06on provision.
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17:06 - 17:09The high-performing systems have helped teachers
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17:09 - 17:11and school principals to look outwards to the next teacher,
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17:11 - 17:14the next school around their lives.
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17:14 - 17:16And the most impressive outcomes of world-class systems
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17:16 - 17:19is that they achieve high performance across the entire system.
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17:19 - 17:21You've seen Finland doing so well on PISA,
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17:21 - 17:23but what makes Finland so impressive
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17:23 - 17:27is that only five percent of the performance variation
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17:27 - 17:29amongst students lies between schools.
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17:29 - 17:32Every school succeeds.
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17:32 - 17:34This is where success is systemic.
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17:34 - 17:36And how do they do that?
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17:36 - 17:39They invest resources where they can make the most difference.
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17:39 - 17:44They attract the strongest principals into the toughest schools,
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17:44 - 17:46and the most talented teachers
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17:46 - 17:48into the most challenging classroom.
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17:48 - 17:51Last but not least, those countries align policies
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17:51 - 17:53across all areas of public policy.
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17:53 - 17:57They make them coherent over sustained periods of time,
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17:57 - 18:01and they ensure that what they do is consistently implemented.
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18:01 - 18:04Now, knowing what successful systems are doing
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18:04 - 18:06doesn't yet tell us how to improve.
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18:06 - 18:09That's also clear, and that's where some of the limits
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18:09 - 18:12of international comparisons of PISA are.
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18:12 - 18:15That's where other forms of research need to kick in,
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18:15 - 18:17and that's also why PISA doesn't venture into
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18:17 - 18:19telling countries what they should be doing.
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18:19 - 18:21But its strength lies in telling them
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18:21 - 18:24what everybody else has been doing.
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18:24 - 18:26And the example of PISA shows that data
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18:26 - 18:29can be more powerful than administrative control of financial subsidy
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18:29 - 18:33through which we usually run education systems.
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18:33 - 18:36You know, some people argue that
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18:36 - 18:38changing educational administration
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18:38 - 18:41is like moving graveyards.
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18:41 - 18:46You just can't rely on the people out there to help you with this. (Laughter)
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18:46 - 18:51But PISA has shown what's possible in education.
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18:51 - 18:54It has helped countries to see that improvement is possible.
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18:54 - 18:59It has taken away excuses from those who are complacent.
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18:59 - 19:02And it has helped countries to set meaningful targets
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19:02 - 19:05in terms of measurable goals achieved by the world's leaders.
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19:05 - 19:10If we can help every child, every teacher, every school,
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19:10 - 19:13every principal, every parent see what improvement is possible,
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19:13 - 19:16that only the sky is the limit to education improvement,
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19:16 - 19:18we have laid the foundations
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19:18 - 19:20for better policies and better lives.
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19:20 - 19:23Thank you.
-
19:23 - 19:27(Applause)
- Title:
- Use data to build better schools
- Speaker:
- Andreas Schleicher
- Description:
-
How can we measure what makes a school system work? Andreas Schleicher walks us through the PISA test, a global measurement that ranks countries against one another -- then uses that same data to help schools improve. Watch to find out where your country stacks up, and learn the single factor that makes some systems outperform others.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 19:47
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Use data to build better schools | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Use data to build better schools | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Use data to build better schools | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Use data to build better schools | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Use data to build better schools | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |