0:00:00.595,0:00:03.715
Radical openness is still a distant future

0:00:03.715,0:00:06.011
in the field of school education.

0:00:06.011,0:00:07.900
We have such a hard time figuring out

0:00:07.900,0:00:12.121
that learning is not a place but an activity.

0:00:12.121,0:00:15.592
But I want to tell you the story of PISA,

0:00:15.592,0:00:17.970
OECD's test to measure the knowledge and skills

0:00:17.970,0:00:19.599
of 15-year-olds around the world,

0:00:19.599,0:00:24.121
and it's really a story of how international comparisons

0:00:24.121,0:00:27.396
have globalized the field of education that we usually treat

0:00:27.396,0:00:30.331
as an affair of domestic policy.

0:00:30.331,0:00:32.755
Look at how the world looked in the 1960s,

0:00:32.755,0:00:34.586
in terms of the proportion of people

0:00:34.586,0:00:37.326
who had completed high school.

0:00:37.326,0:00:41.146
You can see the United States ahead of everyone else,

0:00:41.146,0:00:43.859
and much of the economic success of the United States

0:00:43.859,0:00:46.603
draws on its long-standing advantage

0:00:46.603,0:00:49.475
as the first mover in education.

0:00:49.475,0:00:52.698
But in the 1970s, some countries caught up.

0:00:52.698,0:00:55.387
In the 1980s, the global expansion

0:00:55.387,0:00:57.983
of the talent pool continued.

0:00:57.983,0:01:01.683
And the world didn't stop in the 1990s.

0:01:01.683,0:01:03.707
So in the '60s, the U.S. was first.

0:01:03.707,0:01:06.643
In the '90s, it was 13th,

0:01:06.643,0:01:09.044
and not because standards had fallen,

0:01:09.044,0:01:12.799
but because they had risen so much faster elsewhere.

0:01:12.799,0:01:16.329
Korea shows you what's possible in education.

0:01:16.329,0:01:19.274
Two generations ago, Korea had the standard of living

0:01:19.274,0:01:21.705
of Afghanistan today,

0:01:21.705,0:01:25.846
and was one of the lowest education performers.

0:01:25.846,0:01:31.398
Today, every young Korean finishes high school.

0:01:31.398,0:01:34.374
So this tells us that, in a global economy,

0:01:34.374,0:01:38.955
it is no longer national improvement that's the benchmark for success,

0:01:38.955,0:01:44.136
but the best performing education systems internationally.

0:01:44.136,0:01:46.579
The trouble is that

0:01:46.579,0:01:48.449
measuring how much time people spend in school

0:01:48.449,0:01:50.473
or what degree they have got is not always

0:01:50.473,0:01:55.497
a good way of seeing what they can actually do.

0:01:55.497,0:01:59.170
Look at the toxic mix of unemployed graduates on our streets,

0:01:59.170,0:02:01.364
while employers say they cannot find the people

0:02:01.364,0:02:05.163
with the skills they need.

0:02:05.163,0:02:08.827
And that tells you that better degrees don't automatically translate

0:02:08.827,0:02:13.197
into better skills and better jobs and better lives.

0:02:13.197,0:02:15.806
So with PISA, we try to change this

0:02:15.806,0:02:17.677
by measuring the knowledge and skills

0:02:17.677,0:02:21.113
of people directly.

0:02:21.113,0:02:23.011
And we took a very special angle to this.

0:02:23.011,0:02:25.493
We were less interested in whether students can simply

0:02:25.493,0:02:28.594
reproduce what they have learned in school,

0:02:28.594,0:02:31.310
but we wanted to test whether they can extrapolate

0:02:31.310,0:02:33.223
from what they know

0:02:33.223,0:02:37.102
and apply their knowledge in novel situations.

0:02:37.102,0:02:39.934
Now, some people have criticized us for this.

0:02:39.934,0:02:41.881
They say, you know, such a way of measuring outcomes

0:02:41.881,0:02:44.693
is terribly unfair to people, because we test students

0:02:44.693,0:02:47.666
with problems they haven't seen before.

0:02:47.666,0:02:49.707
But if you take that logic, you know,

0:02:49.707,0:02:52.635
you should consider life unfair, because

0:02:52.635,0:02:55.824
the test of truth in life is not whether we can remember

0:02:55.824,0:02:56.944
what we learned in school,

0:02:56.944,0:03:00.265
but whether we are prepared for change,

0:03:00.265,0:03:02.686
whether we are prepared for jobs that haven't been created,

0:03:02.686,0:03:05.032
to use technologies that haven't been invented,

0:03:05.032,0:03:09.949
to solve problems we just can't anticipate today.

0:03:09.949,0:03:12.134
And once hotly contested,

0:03:12.134,0:03:15.571
our way of measuring outcomes has actually quickly become the standard.

0:03:15.571,0:03:17.813
In our latest assessment in 2009,

0:03:17.813,0:03:21.225
we measured 74 school systems

0:03:21.225,0:03:24.812
that together cover 87 percent of the economy.

0:03:24.812,0:03:28.486
This chart shows you the performance of countries.

0:03:28.486,0:03:31.373
In red, sort of below OECD average.

0:03:31.373,0:03:34.749
Yellow is so-so, and in green are the countries doing really well.

0:03:34.749,0:03:39.103
You can see Shanghai, Korea, Singapore in Asia;

0:03:39.103,0:03:40.793
Finland in Europe;

0:03:40.793,0:03:45.159
Canada in North America doing really well.

0:03:45.159,0:03:47.600
You can also see that there is a gap of almost

0:03:47.600,0:03:49.677
three and a half school years between

0:03:49.677,0:03:53.045
15-year-olds in Shanghai and 15-year-olds in Chile,

0:03:53.045,0:03:55.750
and the gap grows to seven school years

0:03:55.750,0:03:59.373
when you include the countries with really poor performance.

0:03:59.373,0:04:01.844
There's a world of difference in the way in which

0:04:01.844,0:04:07.046
young people are prepared for today's economy.

0:04:07.046,0:04:10.592
But I want to introduce a second important dimension

0:04:10.592,0:04:12.813
into this picture.

0:04:12.813,0:04:17.188
Educators like to talk about equity.

0:04:17.188,0:04:20.898
With PISA, we wanted to measure how they actually deliver equity,

0:04:20.898,0:04:23.125
in terms of ensuring that people

0:04:23.125,0:04:26.565
from different social backgrounds have equal chances.

0:04:26.565,0:04:28.300
And we see that in some countries, the impact

0:04:28.300,0:04:30.179
of social background on learning outcomes

0:04:30.179,0:04:31.317
is very, very strong.

0:04:31.317,0:04:34.235
Opportunities are unequally distributed.

0:04:34.235,0:04:37.850
A lot of potential of young children is wasted.

0:04:37.850,0:04:40.918
We see in other countries that it matters much less

0:04:40.918,0:04:44.411
into which social context you're born.

0:04:44.411,0:04:46.806
We all want to be there, in the upper right quadrant,

0:04:46.806,0:04:51.302
where performance is strong and learning opportunities are equally distributed.

0:04:51.302,0:04:53.973
Nobody, and no country, can afford to be there,

0:04:53.973,0:04:55.354
where performance is poor

0:04:55.354,0:04:58.699
and there are large social disparities.

0:04:58.699,0:05:00.854
And then we can debate, you know, is it better

0:05:00.854,0:05:02.653
to be there, where performance is strong

0:05:02.653,0:05:05.613
at the price of large disparities?

0:05:05.613,0:05:11.232
Or do we want to focus on equity and accept mediocrity?

0:05:11.232,0:05:14.214
But actually, if you look at how countries come out on this picture,

0:05:14.214,0:05:16.957
you see there are a lot of countries that actually

0:05:16.957,0:05:21.725
are combining excellence with equity.

0:05:21.725,0:05:24.333
In fact, one of the most important lessons from this comparison

0:05:24.333,0:05:27.439
is that you don't have to compromise equity

0:05:27.439,0:05:30.286
to achieve excellence.

0:05:30.286,0:05:32.725
These countries have moved on from providing excellence

0:05:32.725,0:05:35.994
for just some to providing excellence for all,

0:05:35.994,0:05:37.966
a very important lesson.

0:05:37.966,0:05:42.942
And that also challenges the paradigms of many school systems

0:05:42.942,0:05:47.245
that believe they are mainly there to sort people.

0:05:47.245,0:05:49.757
And ever since those results came out, policymakers,

0:05:49.757,0:05:51.734
educators, researchers from around the world

0:05:51.734,0:05:53.095
have tried to figure out

0:05:53.095,0:05:56.525
what's behind the success of those systems.

0:05:56.525,0:05:58.349
But let's step back for a moment

0:05:58.349,0:06:01.363
and focus on the countries that actually started PISA,

0:06:01.363,0:06:03.909
and I'm giving them a colored bubble now.

0:06:03.909,0:06:07.401
And I'm making the size of the bubble

0:06:07.401,0:06:08.943
proportional

0:06:08.943,0:06:12.738
to the amount of money that countries spent on students.

0:06:12.738,0:06:14.290
If money would tell you everything

0:06:14.290,0:06:16.369
about the quality of learning outcomes,

0:06:16.369,0:06:19.700
you would find all the large bubbles at the top, no?

0:06:19.700,0:06:22.245
But that's not what you see.

0:06:22.245,0:06:24.550
Spending per student only explains about,

0:06:24.550,0:06:26.846
well, less than 20 percent

0:06:26.846,0:06:30.364
of the performance variation among countries,

0:06:30.364,0:06:32.654
and Luxembourg, for example, the most expensive system,

0:06:32.654,0:06:35.118
doesn't do particularly well.

0:06:35.118,0:06:37.494
What you see is that two countries with similar spending

0:06:37.494,0:06:39.414
achieve very different results.

0:06:39.414,0:06:43.663
You also see -- and I think that's one of the most encouraging findings --

0:06:43.663,0:06:47.252
that we no longer live in a world that is neatly divided

0:06:47.252,0:06:49.942
between rich and well-educated countries,

0:06:49.942,0:06:52.262
and poor and badly-educated ones,

0:06:52.262,0:06:55.857
a very, very important lesson.

0:06:55.857,0:06:58.439
Let's look at this in greater detail.

0:06:58.439,0:07:00.245
The red dot shows you

0:07:00.245,0:07:04.702
spending per student relative to a country's wealth.

0:07:04.702,0:07:07.509
One way you can spend money is by paying teachers well,

0:07:07.509,0:07:10.014
and you can see Korea investing a lot

0:07:10.014,0:07:13.038
in attracting the best people into the teaching profession.

0:07:13.038,0:07:14.964
And Korea also invests into long school days,

0:07:14.964,0:07:17.720
which drives up costs further.

0:07:17.720,0:07:19.860
Last but not least, Koreans want their teachers

0:07:19.860,0:07:22.140
not only to teach but also to develop.

0:07:22.140,0:07:24.475
They invest in professional development and collaboration

0:07:24.475,0:07:26.555
and many other things.

0:07:26.555,0:07:28.196
All that costs money.

0:07:28.196,0:07:30.866
How can Korea afford all of this?

0:07:30.866,0:07:34.606
The answer is, students in Korea learn in large classes.

0:07:34.606,0:07:39.074
This is the blue bar which is driving costs down.

0:07:39.074,0:07:41.969
You go to the next country on the list, Luxembourg,

0:07:41.969,0:07:45.072
and you can see the red dot is exactly where it is for Korea,

0:07:45.072,0:07:48.605
so Luxembourg spends the same per student as Korea does.

0:07:48.605,0:07:51.499
But, you know, parents and teachers and policymakers

0:07:51.499,0:07:53.946
in Luxembourg all like small classes.

0:07:53.946,0:07:56.714
You know, it's very pleasant to walk into a small class.

0:07:56.714,0:07:58.618
So they have invested all their money into there,

0:07:58.618,0:08:01.964
and the blue bar, class size, is driving costs up.

0:08:01.964,0:08:06.125
But even Luxembourg can spend its money only once,

0:08:06.125,0:08:08.330
and the price for this is that

0:08:08.330,0:08:10.434
teachers are not paid particularly well.

0:08:10.434,0:08:13.113
Students don't have long hours of learning.

0:08:13.113,0:08:16.355
And basically, teachers have little time to do anything else than teaching.

0:08:16.355,0:08:20.036
So you can see two countries spent their money very differently,

0:08:20.036,0:08:22.356
and actually how they spent their money

0:08:22.356,0:08:28.359
matters a lot more than how much they invest in education.

0:08:28.359,0:08:30.913
Let's go back to the year 2000.

0:08:30.913,0:08:34.908
Remember, that was the year before the iPod was invented.

0:08:34.908,0:08:37.032
This is how the world looked then

0:08:37.032,0:08:41.293
in terms of PISA performance.

0:08:41.293,0:08:44.108
The first thing you can see is that the bubbles were a lot smaller, no?

0:08:44.108,0:08:45.739
We spent a lot less on education,

0:08:45.739,0:08:47.811
about 35 percent less on education.

0:08:47.811,0:08:51.556
So you ask yourself, if education has become so much more expensive,

0:08:51.556,0:08:54.909
has it become so much better?

0:08:54.909,0:08:57.908
And the bitter truth really is that, you know,

0:08:57.908,0:09:00.353
not in many countries.

0:09:00.353,0:09:02.436
But there are some countries which have seen

0:09:02.436,0:09:05.384
impressive improvements.

0:09:05.384,0:09:09.180
Germany, my own country, in the year 2000,

0:09:09.180,0:09:11.068
featured in the lower quadrant,

0:09:11.068,0:09:14.233
below average performance, large social disparities.

0:09:14.233,0:09:16.236
And remember, Germany, we used to be one of those countries

0:09:16.236,0:09:19.964
that comes out very well when you just count people who have degrees.

0:09:19.964,0:09:21.725
Very disappointing results.

0:09:21.725,0:09:24.462
People were stunned by the results.

0:09:24.462,0:09:28.253
And for the very first time, the public debate in Germany

0:09:28.253,0:09:31.959
was dominated for months by education,

0:09:31.959,0:09:34.693
not tax, not other kinds of issues, but education

0:09:34.693,0:09:37.244
was the center of the public debate.

0:09:37.244,0:09:40.463
And then policymakers began to respond to this.

0:09:40.463,0:09:44.693
The federal government dramatically raised its investment in education.

0:09:44.693,0:09:48.322
A lot was done to increase the life chances of students

0:09:48.322,0:09:51.284
with an immigrant background or from social disadvantage.

0:09:51.284,0:09:55.792
And what's really interesting is that this wasn't just about

0:09:55.792,0:09:59.551
optimizing existing policies,

0:09:59.551,0:10:02.964
but data transformed some of the beliefs and paradigms

0:10:02.964,0:10:04.751
underlying German education.

0:10:04.751,0:10:08.637
For example, traditionally, the education of the very young children

0:10:08.637,0:10:11.255
was seen as the business of families, and you would have cases

0:10:11.255,0:10:14.287
where women were seen as neglecting their family responsibilities

0:10:14.287,0:10:17.375
when they sent their children to kindergarten.

0:10:17.375,0:10:20.023
PISA has transformed that debate,

0:10:20.023,0:10:22.796
and pushed early childhood education right at the center

0:10:22.796,0:10:25.188
of public policy in Germany.

0:10:25.188,0:10:28.889
Or traditionally, the German education divides children

0:10:28.889,0:10:31.637
at the age of 10, very young children,

0:10:31.637,0:10:35.826
between those deemed to pursue careers of knowledge workers

0:10:35.826,0:10:39.176
and those who would end up working for the knowledge workers,

0:10:39.176,0:10:41.652
and that mainly along socioeconomic lines,

0:10:41.652,0:10:45.820
and that paradigm is being challenged now too.

0:10:45.820,0:10:48.304
A lot of change.

0:10:48.304,0:10:51.258
And the good news is, nine years later,

0:10:51.258,0:10:54.357
you can see improvements in quality and equity.

0:10:54.357,0:10:56.633
People have taken up the challenge, done something about it.

0:10:56.633,0:10:58.761
Or take Korea, at the other end of the spectrum.

0:10:58.761,0:11:01.306
In the year 2000, Korea did already very well,

0:11:01.306,0:11:04.631
but the Koreans were concerned that only a small share

0:11:04.631,0:11:08.990
of their students achieved the really high levels of excellence.

0:11:08.990,0:11:10.804
They took up the challenge,

0:11:10.804,0:11:14.338
and Korea was able to double the proportion of students

0:11:14.338,0:11:18.740
achieving excellence in one decade in the field of reading.

0:11:18.740,0:11:21.293
Well, if you only focus on your brightest students,

0:11:21.293,0:11:23.212
you know what happens is disparities grow,

0:11:23.212,0:11:27.012
and you can see this bubble moving slightly to the other direction,

0:11:27.012,0:11:29.723
but still, an impressive improvement.

0:11:29.723,0:11:32.309
A major overhaul of Poland's education

0:11:32.309,0:11:35.942
helped to dramatically reduce between variability among schools,

0:11:35.942,0:11:38.636
turn around many of the lowest-performing schools,

0:11:38.636,0:11:43.470
and raise performance by over half a school year.

0:11:43.470,0:11:45.261
And you can see other countries as well.

0:11:45.261,0:11:48.204
Portugal was able to consolidate its fragmented school system,

0:11:48.204,0:11:51.196
raise quality and improve equity,

0:11:51.196,0:11:53.072
and so did Hungary.

0:11:53.072,0:11:56.503
So what you can actually see, there's been a lot of change.

0:11:56.503,0:11:59.436
And even those people who complain and say that

0:11:59.436,0:12:01.125
the relative standing of countries

0:12:01.125,0:12:04.547
on something like PISA is just an artifact of culture,

0:12:04.547,0:12:07.589
of economic factors, of social issues,

0:12:07.589,0:12:10.651
of homogeneity of societies, and so on,

0:12:10.651,0:12:15.493
these people must now concede that education improvement is possible.

0:12:15.493,0:12:18.533
You know, Poland hasn't changed its culture.

0:12:18.533,0:12:21.037
It didn't change its economy. It didn't change

0:12:21.037,0:12:23.129
the compositions of its population.

0:12:23.129,0:12:25.983
It didn't fire its teachers. It changed its education policies

0:12:25.983,0:12:28.623
and practice. Very impressive.

0:12:28.623,0:12:31.588
And all that raises, of course, the question: What can we learn

0:12:31.588,0:12:33.692
from those countries in the green quadrant

0:12:33.692,0:12:35.967
who have achieved high levels of equity,

0:12:35.967,0:12:39.699
high levels of performance, and raised outcomes?

0:12:39.699,0:12:43.613
And, of course, the question is, can what works in one context

0:12:43.613,0:12:46.329
provide a model elsewhere?

0:12:46.329,0:12:49.659
Of course, you can't copy and paste education systems wholesale,

0:12:49.659,0:12:53.586
but these comparisons have identified a range of factors

0:12:53.586,0:12:56.907
that high-performing systems share.

0:12:56.907,0:12:59.467
Everybody agrees that education is important.

0:12:59.467,0:13:01.454
Everybody says that.

0:13:01.454,0:13:04.709
But the test of truth is, how do you weigh that priority

0:13:04.709,0:13:07.005
against other priorities?

0:13:07.005,0:13:09.018
How do countries pay their teachers

0:13:09.018,0:13:12.123
relative to other highly skilled workers?

0:13:12.123,0:13:14.608
Would you want your child to become a teacher

0:13:14.608,0:13:16.720
rather than a lawyer?

0:13:16.720,0:13:18.722
How do the media talk about schools and teachers?

0:13:18.722,0:13:21.227
Those are the critical questions, and what we have learned

0:13:21.227,0:13:25.321
from PISA is that, in high-performing education systems,

0:13:25.321,0:13:28.871
the leaders have convinced their citizens to make choices

0:13:28.871,0:13:31.249
that value education, their future,

0:13:31.249,0:13:33.921
more than consumption today.

0:13:33.921,0:13:35.967
And you know what's interesting? You won't believe it,

0:13:35.967,0:13:38.953
but there are countries in which the most attractive place

0:13:38.953,0:13:41.873
to be is not the shopping center but the school.

0:13:41.873,0:13:44.140
Those things really exist.

0:13:44.140,0:13:46.113
But placing a high value on education

0:13:46.113,0:13:48.964
is just part of the picture.

0:13:48.964,0:13:51.993
The other part is the belief that all children

0:13:51.993,0:13:55.428
are capable of success.

0:13:55.428,0:13:57.189
You have some countries where students

0:13:57.189,0:13:59.428
are segregated early in their ages.

0:13:59.428,0:14:01.474
You know, students are divided up,

0:14:01.474,0:14:03.809
reflecting the belief that only some children

0:14:03.809,0:14:07.361
can achieve world-class standards.

0:14:07.361,0:14:11.416
But usually that is linked to very strong social disparities.

0:14:11.416,0:14:14.800
If you go to Japan in Asia, or Finland in Europe,

0:14:14.800,0:14:16.906
parents and teachers in those countries

0:14:16.906,0:14:20.817
expect every student to succeed,

0:14:20.817,0:14:24.309
and you can see that actually mirrored in student behavior.

0:14:24.309,0:14:27.025
When we asked students what counts

0:14:27.025,0:14:29.761
for success in mathematics,

0:14:29.761,0:14:32.153
students in North America would typically tell us,

0:14:32.153,0:14:33.699
you know, it's all about talent.

0:14:33.699,0:14:38.325
If I'm not born as a genius in math, I'd better study something else.

0:14:38.325,0:14:41.051
Nine out of 10 Japanese students say

0:14:41.051,0:14:45.297
that it depends on my own investment, on my own effort,

0:14:45.297,0:14:50.032
and that tells you a lot about the system that is around them.

0:14:50.032,0:14:54.841
In the past, different students were taught in similar ways.

0:14:54.841,0:14:58.173
High performers on PISA embrace diversity

0:14:58.173,0:15:01.921
with differentiated pedagogical practices.

0:15:01.921,0:15:03.897
They realize that

0:15:03.897,0:15:07.041
ordinary students have extraordinary talents,

0:15:07.041,0:15:10.401
and they personalize learning opportunities.

0:15:10.401,0:15:12.437
High-performing systems also share

0:15:12.437,0:15:16.043
clear and ambitious standards across the entire spectrum.

0:15:16.043,0:15:18.245
Every student knows what matters.

0:15:18.245,0:15:22.332
Every student knows what's required to be successful.

0:15:22.332,0:15:25.197
And nowhere does the quality of an education system

0:15:25.197,0:15:27.640
exceed the quality of its teachers.

0:15:27.640,0:15:30.708
High-performing systems are very careful

0:15:30.708,0:15:32.842
in how they recruit and select their teachers

0:15:32.842,0:15:34.563
and how they train them.

0:15:34.563,0:15:37.393
They watch how they improve the performances of teachers

0:15:37.393,0:15:39.713
in difficulties who are struggling,

0:15:39.713,0:15:42.622
and how they structure teacher pay.

0:15:42.622,0:15:46.318
They provide an environment also in which teachers work together

0:15:46.318,0:15:49.875
to frame good practice.

0:15:49.875,0:15:54.036
And they provide intelligent pathways for teachers to grow

0:15:54.036,0:15:56.151
in their careers.

0:15:56.151,0:15:57.775
In bureaucratic school systems,

0:15:57.775,0:15:59.768
teachers are often left alone in classrooms

0:15:59.768,0:16:02.935
with a lot of prescription on what they should be teaching.

0:16:02.935,0:16:06.145
High-performing systems are very clear what good performance is.

0:16:06.145,0:16:08.919
They set very ambitious standards, but then they enable

0:16:08.919,0:16:10.696
their teachers to figure out,

0:16:10.696,0:16:14.811
what do I need to teach to my students today?

0:16:14.811,0:16:19.357
The past was about delivered wisdom in education.

0:16:19.357,0:16:24.599
Now the challenge is to enable user-generated wisdom.

0:16:24.599,0:16:28.239
High performers have moved on from professional

0:16:28.239,0:16:31.903
or from administrative forms of accountability and control --

0:16:31.903,0:16:35.140
sort of, how do you check whether people do what they're supposed to do in education --

0:16:35.140,0:16:38.806
to professional forms of work organization.

0:16:38.806,0:16:42.678
They enable their teachers to make innovations in pedagogy.

0:16:42.678,0:16:45.168
They provide them with the kind of development they need

0:16:45.168,0:16:49.230
to develop stronger pedagogical practices.

0:16:49.230,0:16:54.888
The goal of the past was standardization and compliance.

0:16:54.888,0:16:57.622
High-performing systems have made teachers

0:16:57.622,0:17:00.908
and school principals inventive.

0:17:00.908,0:17:03.607
In the past, the policy focus was on outcomes,

0:17:03.607,0:17:05.789
on provision.

0:17:05.789,0:17:08.592
The high-performing systems have helped teachers

0:17:08.592,0:17:11.033
and school principals to look outwards to the next teacher,

0:17:11.033,0:17:13.726
the next school around their lives.

0:17:13.726,0:17:15.892
And the most impressive outcomes of world-class systems

0:17:15.892,0:17:19.039
is that they achieve high performance across the entire system.

0:17:19.039,0:17:21.236
You've seen Finland doing so well on PISA,

0:17:21.236,0:17:22.926
but what makes Finland so impressive

0:17:22.926,0:17:26.903
is that only five percent of the performance variation

0:17:26.903,0:17:29.359
amongst students lies between schools.

0:17:29.359,0:17:31.675
Every school succeeds.

0:17:31.675,0:17:34.406
This is where success is systemic.

0:17:34.406,0:17:36.110
And how do they do that?

0:17:36.110,0:17:38.802
They invest resources where they can make the most difference.

0:17:38.802,0:17:43.910
They attract the strongest principals into the toughest schools,

0:17:43.910,0:17:46.118
and the most talented teachers

0:17:46.118,0:17:48.061
into the most challenging classroom.

0:17:48.061,0:17:51.190
Last but not least, those countries align policies

0:17:51.190,0:17:53.410
across all areas of public policy.

0:17:53.410,0:17:56.543
They make them coherent over sustained periods of time,

0:17:56.543,0:18:01.246
and they ensure that what they do is consistently implemented.

0:18:01.246,0:18:03.550
Now, knowing what successful systems are doing

0:18:03.550,0:18:06.341
doesn't yet tell us how to improve.

0:18:06.341,0:18:08.799
That's also clear, and that's where some of the limits

0:18:08.799,0:18:12.274
of international comparisons of PISA are.

0:18:12.274,0:18:14.977
That's where other forms of research need to kick in,

0:18:14.977,0:18:17.435
and that's also why PISA doesn't venture into

0:18:17.435,0:18:19.195
telling countries what they should be doing.

0:18:19.195,0:18:21.018
But its strength lies in telling them

0:18:21.018,0:18:23.773
what everybody else has been doing.

0:18:23.773,0:18:25.969
And the example of PISA shows that data

0:18:25.969,0:18:29.287
can be more powerful than administrative control of financial subsidy

0:18:29.287,0:18:33.228
through which we usually run education systems.

0:18:33.228,0:18:36.266
You know, some people argue that

0:18:36.266,0:18:38.454
changing educational administration

0:18:38.454,0:18:40.895
is like moving graveyards.

0:18:40.895,0:18:45.782
You just can't rely on the people out there to help you with this. (Laughter)

0:18:45.782,0:18:50.649
But PISA has shown what's possible in education.

0:18:50.649,0:18:54.454
It has helped countries to see that improvement is possible.

0:18:54.454,0:18:58.662
It has taken away excuses from those who are complacent.

0:18:58.662,0:19:02.095
And it has helped countries to set meaningful targets

0:19:02.095,0:19:05.193
in terms of measurable goals achieved by the world's leaders.

0:19:05.193,0:19:09.743
If we can help every child, every teacher, every school,

0:19:09.743,0:19:13.398
every principal, every parent see what improvement is possible,

0:19:13.398,0:19:16.134
that only the sky is the limit to education improvement,

0:19:16.134,0:19:18.030
we have laid the foundations

0:19:18.030,0:19:20.213
for better policies and better lives.

0:19:20.213,0:19:22.746
Thank you.

0:19:22.746,0:19:26.746
(Applause)