WEBVTT 00:00:00.595 --> 00:00:03.715 Radical openness is still a distant future 00:00:03.715 --> 00:00:06.011 in the field of school education. 00:00:06.011 --> 00:00:07.900 We have such a hard time figuring out 00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:12.121 that learning is not a place but an activity. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:12.121 --> 00:00:15.592 But I want to tell you the story of PISA, 00:00:15.592 --> 00:00:17.970 OECD's test to measure the knowledge and skills 00:00:17.970 --> 00:00:19.599 of 15-year-olds around the world, 00:00:19.599 --> 00:00:24.121 and it's really a story of how international comparisons 00:00:24.121 --> 00:00:27.396 have globalized the field of education that we usually treat 00:00:27.396 --> 00:00:30.331 as an affair of domestic policy. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:30.331 --> 00:00:32.755 Look at how the world looked in the 1960s, 00:00:32.755 --> 00:00:34.586 in terms of the proportion of people 00:00:34.586 --> 00:00:37.326 who had completed high school. 00:00:37.326 --> 00:00:41.146 You can see the United States ahead of everyone else, 00:00:41.146 --> 00:00:43.859 and much of the economic success of the United States 00:00:43.859 --> 00:00:46.603 draws on its long-standing advantage 00:00:46.603 --> 00:00:49.475 as the first mover in education. 00:00:49.475 --> 00:00:52.698 But in the 1970s, some countries caught up. 00:00:52.698 --> 00:00:55.387 In the 1980s, the global expansion 00:00:55.387 --> 00:00:57.983 of the talent pool continued. 00:00:57.983 --> 00:01:01.683 And the world didn't stop in the 1990s. 00:01:01.683 --> 00:01:03.707 So in the '60s, the U.S. was first. 00:01:03.707 --> 00:01:06.643 In the '90s, it was 13th, 00:01:06.643 --> 00:01:09.044 and not because standards had fallen, 00:01:09.044 --> 00:01:12.799 but because they had risen so much faster elsewhere. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:16.329 Korea shows you what's possible in education. 00:01:16.329 --> 00:01:19.274 Two generations ago, Korea had the standard of living 00:01:19.274 --> 00:01:21.705 of Afghanistan today, 00:01:21.705 --> 00:01:25.846 and was one of the lowest education performers. 00:01:25.846 --> 00:01:31.398 Today, every young Korean finishes high school. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:31.398 --> 00:01:34.374 So this tells us that, in a global economy, 00:01:34.374 --> 00:01:38.955 it is no longer national improvement that's the benchmark for success, 00:01:38.955 --> 00:01:44.136 but the best performing education systems internationally. 00:01:44.136 --> 00:01:46.579 The trouble is that 00:01:46.579 --> 00:01:48.449 measuring how much time people spend in school 00:01:48.449 --> 00:01:50.473 or what degree they have got is not always 00:01:50.473 --> 00:01:55.497 a good way of seeing what they can actually do. 00:01:55.497 --> 00:01:59.170 Look at the toxic mix of unemployed graduates on our streets, 00:01:59.170 --> 00:02:01.364 while employers say they cannot find the people 00:02:01.364 --> 00:02:05.163 with the skills they need. 00:02:05.163 --> 00:02:08.827 And that tells you that better degrees don't automatically translate 00:02:08.827 --> 00:02:13.197 into better skills and better jobs and better lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:13.197 --> 00:02:15.806 So with PISA, we try to change this 00:02:15.806 --> 00:02:17.677 by measuring the knowledge and skills 00:02:17.677 --> 00:02:21.113 of people directly. 00:02:21.113 --> 00:02:23.011 And we took a very special angle to this. 00:02:23.011 --> 00:02:25.493 We were less interested in whether students can simply 00:02:25.493 --> 00:02:28.594 reproduce what they have learned in school, 00:02:28.594 --> 00:02:31.310 but we wanted to test whether they can extrapolate 00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:33.223 from what they know 00:02:33.223 --> 00:02:37.102 and apply their knowledge in novel situations. 00:02:37.102 --> 00:02:39.934 Now, some people have criticized us for this. 00:02:39.934 --> 00:02:41.881 They say, you know, such a way of measuring outcomes 00:02:41.881 --> 00:02:44.693 is terribly unfair to people, because we test students 00:02:44.693 --> 00:02:47.666 with problems they haven't seen before. 00:02:47.666 --> 00:02:49.707 But if you take that logic, you know, 00:02:49.707 --> 00:02:52.635 you should consider life unfair, because 00:02:52.635 --> 00:02:55.824 the test of truth in life is not whether we can remember 00:02:55.824 --> 00:02:56.944 what we learned in school, 00:02:56.944 --> 00:03:00.265 but whether we are prepared for change, 00:03:00.265 --> 00:03:02.686 whether we are prepared for jobs that haven't been created, 00:03:02.686 --> 00:03:05.032 to use technologies that haven't been invented, 00:03:05.032 --> 00:03:09.949 to solve problems we just can't anticipate today. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:12.134 And once hotly contested, 00:03:12.134 --> 00:03:15.571 our way of measuring outcomes has actually quickly become the standard. 00:03:15.571 --> 00:03:17.813 In our latest assessment in 2009, 00:03:17.813 --> 00:03:21.225 we measured 74 school systems 00:03:21.225 --> 00:03:24.812 that together cover 87 percent of the economy. 00:03:24.812 --> 00:03:28.486 This chart shows you the performance of countries. 00:03:28.486 --> 00:03:31.373 In red, sort of below OECD average. 00:03:31.373 --> 00:03:34.749 Yellow is so-so, and in green are the countries doing really well. 00:03:34.749 --> 00:03:39.103 You can see Shanghai, Korea, Singapore in Asia; 00:03:39.103 --> 00:03:40.793 Finland in Europe; 00:03:40.793 --> 00:03:45.159 Canada in North America doing really well. 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.600 You can also see that there is a gap of almost 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:49.677 three and a half school years between 00:03:49.677 --> 00:03:53.045 15-year-olds in Shanghai and 15-year-olds in Chile, 00:03:53.045 --> 00:03:55.750 and the gap grows to seven school years 00:03:55.750 --> 00:03:59.373 when you include the countries with really poor performance. 00:03:59.373 --> 00:04:01.844 There's a world of difference in the way in which 00:04:01.844 --> 00:04:07.046 young people are prepared for today's economy. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:07.046 --> 00:04:10.592 But I want to introduce a second important dimension 00:04:10.592 --> 00:04:12.813 into this picture. 00:04:12.813 --> 00:04:17.188 Educators like to talk about equity. 00:04:17.188 --> 00:04:20.898 With PISA, we wanted to measure how they actually deliver equity, 00:04:20.898 --> 00:04:23.125 in terms of ensuring that people 00:04:23.125 --> 00:04:26.565 from different social backgrounds have equal chances. 00:04:26.565 --> 00:04:28.300 And we see that in some countries, the impact 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:30.179 of social background on learning outcomes 00:04:30.179 --> 00:04:31.317 is very, very strong. 00:04:31.317 --> 00:04:34.235 Opportunities are unequally distributed. 00:04:34.235 --> 00:04:37.850 A lot of potential of young children is wasted. 00:04:37.850 --> 00:04:40.918 We see in other countries that it matters much less 00:04:40.918 --> 00:04:44.411 into which social context you're born. 00:04:44.411 --> 00:04:46.806 We all want to be there, in the upper right quadrant, 00:04:46.806 --> 00:04:51.302 where performance is strong and learning opportunities are equally distributed. 00:04:51.302 --> 00:04:53.973 Nobody, and no country, can afford to be there, 00:04:53.973 --> 00:04:55.354 where performance is poor 00:04:55.354 --> 00:04:58.699 and there are large social disparities. 00:04:58.699 --> 00:05:00.854 And then we can debate, you know, is it better 00:05:00.854 --> 00:05:02.653 to be there, where performance is strong 00:05:02.653 --> 00:05:05.613 at the price of large disparities? 00:05:05.613 --> 00:05:11.232 Or do we want to focus on equity and accept mediocrity? 00:05:11.232 --> 00:05:14.214 But actually, if you look at how countries come out on this picture, 00:05:14.214 --> 00:05:16.957 you see there are a lot of countries that actually 00:05:16.957 --> 00:05:21.725 are combining excellence with equity. 00:05:21.725 --> 00:05:24.333 In fact, one of the most important lessons from this comparison 00:05:24.333 --> 00:05:27.439 is that you don't have to compromise equity 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:30.286 to achieve excellence. 00:05:30.286 --> 00:05:32.725 These countries have moved on from providing excellence 00:05:32.725 --> 00:05:35.994 for just some to providing excellence for all, 00:05:35.994 --> 00:05:37.966 a very important lesson. 00:05:37.966 --> 00:05:42.942 And that also challenges the paradigms of many school systems 00:05:42.942 --> 00:05:47.245 that believe they are mainly there to sort people. 00:05:47.245 --> 00:05:49.757 And ever since those results came out, policymakers, 00:05:49.757 --> 00:05:51.734 educators, researchers from around the world 00:05:51.734 --> 00:05:53.095 have tried to figure out 00:05:53.095 --> 00:05:56.525 what's behind the success of those systems. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:56.525 --> 00:05:58.349 But let's step back for a moment 00:05:58.349 --> 00:06:01.363 and focus on the countries that actually started PISA, 00:06:01.363 --> 00:06:03.909 and I'm giving them a colored bubble now. 00:06:03.909 --> 00:06:07.401 And I'm making the size of the bubble 00:06:07.401 --> 00:06:08.943 proportional 00:06:08.943 --> 00:06:12.738 to the amount of money that countries spent on students. 00:06:12.738 --> 00:06:14.290 If money would tell you everything 00:06:14.290 --> 00:06:16.369 about the quality of learning outcomes, 00:06:16.369 --> 00:06:19.700 you would find all the large bubbles at the top, no? 00:06:19.700 --> 00:06:22.245 But that's not what you see. 00:06:22.245 --> 00:06:24.550 Spending per student only explains about, 00:06:24.550 --> 00:06:26.846 well, less than 20 percent 00:06:26.846 --> 00:06:30.364 of the performance variation among countries, 00:06:30.364 --> 00:06:32.654 and Luxembourg, for example, the most expensive system, 00:06:32.654 --> 00:06:35.118 doesn't do particularly well. 00:06:35.118 --> 00:06:37.494 What you see is that two countries with similar spending 00:06:37.494 --> 00:06:39.414 achieve very different results. 00:06:39.414 --> 00:06:43.663 You also see -- and I think that's one of the most encouraging findings -- 00:06:43.663 --> 00:06:47.252 that we no longer live in a world that is neatly divided 00:06:47.252 --> 00:06:49.942 between rich and well-educated countries, 00:06:49.942 --> 00:06:52.262 and poor and badly-educated ones, 00:06:52.262 --> 00:06:55.857 a very, very important lesson. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:55.857 --> 00:06:58.439 Let's look at this in greater detail. 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:00.245 The red dot shows you 00:07:00.245 --> 00:07:04.702 spending per student relative to a country's wealth. 00:07:04.702 --> 00:07:07.509 One way you can spend money is by paying teachers well, 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:10.014 and you can see Korea investing a lot 00:07:10.014 --> 00:07:13.038 in attracting the best people into the teaching profession. 00:07:13.038 --> 00:07:14.964 And Korea also invests into long school days, 00:07:14.964 --> 00:07:17.720 which drives up costs further. 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:19.860 Last but not least, Koreans want their teachers 00:07:19.860 --> 00:07:22.140 not only to teach but also to develop. 00:07:22.140 --> 00:07:24.475 They invest in professional development and collaboration 00:07:24.475 --> 00:07:26.555 and many other things. 00:07:26.555 --> 00:07:28.196 All that costs money. 00:07:28.196 --> 00:07:30.866 How can Korea afford all of this? 00:07:30.866 --> 00:07:34.606 The answer is, students in Korea learn in large classes. 00:07:34.606 --> 00:07:39.074 This is the blue bar which is driving costs down. 00:07:39.074 --> 00:07:41.969 You go to the next country on the list, Luxembourg, 00:07:41.969 --> 00:07:45.072 and you can see the red dot is exactly where it is for Korea, 00:07:45.072 --> 00:07:48.605 so Luxembourg spends the same per student as Korea does. 00:07:48.605 --> 00:07:51.499 But, you know, parents and teachers and policymakers 00:07:51.499 --> 00:07:53.946 in Luxembourg all like small classes. 00:07:53.946 --> 00:07:56.714 You know, it's very pleasant to walk into a small class. 00:07:56.714 --> 00:07:58.618 So they have invested all their money into there, 00:07:58.618 --> 00:08:01.964 and the blue bar, class size, is driving costs up. 00:08:01.964 --> 00:08:06.125 But even Luxembourg can spend its money only once, 00:08:06.125 --> 00:08:08.330 and the price for this is that 00:08:08.330 --> 00:08:10.434 teachers are not paid particularly well. 00:08:10.434 --> 00:08:13.113 Students don't have long hours of learning. 00:08:13.113 --> 00:08:16.355 And basically, teachers have little time to do anything else than teaching. 00:08:16.355 --> 00:08:20.036 So you can see two countries spent their money very differently, 00:08:20.036 --> 00:08:22.356 and actually how they spent their money 00:08:22.356 --> 00:08:28.359 matters a lot more than how much they invest in education. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:28.359 --> 00:08:30.913 Let's go back to the year 2000. 00:08:30.913 --> 00:08:34.908 Remember, that was the year before the iPod was invented. 00:08:34.908 --> 00:08:37.032 This is how the world looked then 00:08:37.032 --> 00:08:41.293 in terms of PISA performance. 00:08:41.293 --> 00:08:44.108 The first thing you can see is that the bubbles were a lot smaller, no? 00:08:44.108 --> 00:08:45.739 We spent a lot less on education, 00:08:45.739 --> 00:08:47.811 about 35 percent less on education. 00:08:47.811 --> 00:08:51.556 So you ask yourself, if education has become so much more expensive, 00:08:51.556 --> 00:08:54.909 has it become so much better? 00:08:54.909 --> 00:08:57.908 And the bitter truth really is that, you know, 00:08:57.908 --> 00:09:00.353 not in many countries. 00:09:00.353 --> 00:09:02.436 But there are some countries which have seen 00:09:02.436 --> 00:09:05.384 impressive improvements. 00:09:05.384 --> 00:09:09.180 Germany, my own country, in the year 2000, 00:09:09.180 --> 00:09:11.068 featured in the lower quadrant, 00:09:11.068 --> 00:09:14.233 below average performance, large social disparities. 00:09:14.233 --> 00:09:16.236 And remember, Germany, we used to be one of those countries 00:09:16.236 --> 00:09:19.964 that comes out very well when you just count people who have degrees. 00:09:19.964 --> 00:09:21.725 Very disappointing results. 00:09:21.725 --> 00:09:24.462 People were stunned by the results. 00:09:24.462 --> 00:09:28.253 And for the very first time, the public debate in Germany 00:09:28.253 --> 00:09:31.959 was dominated for months by education, 00:09:31.959 --> 00:09:34.693 not tax, not other kinds of issues, but education 00:09:34.693 --> 00:09:37.244 was the center of the public debate. 00:09:37.244 --> 00:09:40.463 And then policymakers began to respond to this. 00:09:40.463 --> 00:09:44.693 The federal government dramatically raised its investment in education. 00:09:44.693 --> 00:09:48.322 A lot was done to increase the life chances of students 00:09:48.322 --> 00:09:51.284 with an immigrant background or from social disadvantage. 00:09:51.284 --> 00:09:55.792 And what's really interesting is that this wasn't just about 00:09:55.792 --> 00:09:59.551 optimizing existing policies, 00:09:59.551 --> 00:10:02.964 but data transformed some of the beliefs and paradigms 00:10:02.964 --> 00:10:04.751 underlying German education. 00:10:04.751 --> 00:10:08.637 For example, traditionally, the education of the very young children 00:10:08.637 --> 00:10:11.255 was seen as the business of families, and you would have cases 00:10:11.255 --> 00:10:14.287 where women were seen as neglecting their family responsibilities 00:10:14.287 --> 00:10:17.375 when they sent their children to kindergarten. 00:10:17.375 --> 00:10:20.023 PISA has transformed that debate, 00:10:20.023 --> 00:10:22.796 and pushed early childhood education right at the center 00:10:22.796 --> 00:10:25.188 of public policy in Germany. 00:10:25.188 --> 00:10:28.889 Or traditionally, the German education divides children 00:10:28.889 --> 00:10:31.637 at the age of 10, very young children, 00:10:31.637 --> 00:10:35.826 between those deemed to pursue careers of knowledge workers 00:10:35.826 --> 00:10:39.176 and those who would end up working for the knowledge workers, 00:10:39.176 --> 00:10:41.652 and that mainly along socioeconomic lines, 00:10:41.652 --> 00:10:45.820 and that paradigm is being challenged now too. 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:48.304 A lot of change. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:48.304 --> 00:10:51.258 And the good news is, nine years later, 00:10:51.258 --> 00:10:54.357 you can see improvements in quality and equity. 00:10:54.357 --> 00:10:56.633 People have taken up the challenge, done something about it. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:56.633 --> 00:10:58.761 Or take Korea, at the other end of the spectrum. 00:10:58.761 --> 00:11:01.306 In the year 2000, Korea did already very well, 00:11:01.306 --> 00:11:04.631 but the Koreans were concerned that only a small share 00:11:04.631 --> 00:11:08.990 of their students achieved the really high levels of excellence. 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:10.804 They took up the challenge, 00:11:10.804 --> 00:11:14.338 and Korea was able to double the proportion of students 00:11:14.338 --> 00:11:18.740 achieving excellence in one decade in the field of reading. 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:21.293 Well, if you only focus on your brightest students, 00:11:21.293 --> 00:11:23.212 you know what happens is disparities grow, 00:11:23.212 --> 00:11:27.012 and you can see this bubble moving slightly to the other direction, 00:11:27.012 --> 00:11:29.723 but still, an impressive improvement. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:29.723 --> 00:11:32.309 A major overhaul of Poland's education 00:11:32.309 --> 00:11:35.942 helped to dramatically reduce between variability among schools, 00:11:35.942 --> 00:11:38.636 turn around many of the lowest-performing schools, 00:11:38.636 --> 00:11:43.470 and raise performance by over half a school year. 00:11:43.470 --> 00:11:45.261 And you can see other countries as well. 00:11:45.261 --> 00:11:48.204 Portugal was able to consolidate its fragmented school system, 00:11:48.204 --> 00:11:51.196 raise quality and improve equity, 00:11:51.196 --> 00:11:53.072 and so did Hungary. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:53.072 --> 00:11:56.503 So what you can actually see, there's been a lot of change. 00:11:56.503 --> 00:11:59.436 And even those people who complain and say that 00:11:59.436 --> 00:12:01.125 the relative standing of countries 00:12:01.125 --> 00:12:04.547 on something like PISA is just an artifact of culture, 00:12:04.547 --> 00:12:07.589 of economic factors, of social issues, 00:12:07.589 --> 00:12:10.651 of homogeneity of societies, and so on, 00:12:10.651 --> 00:12:15.493 these people must now concede that education improvement is possible. 00:12:15.493 --> 00:12:18.533 You know, Poland hasn't changed its culture. 00:12:18.533 --> 00:12:21.037 It didn't change its economy. It didn't change 00:12:21.037 --> 00:12:23.129 the compositions of its population. 00:12:23.129 --> 00:12:25.983 It didn't fire its teachers. It changed its education policies 00:12:25.983 --> 00:12:28.623 and practice. Very impressive. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:28.623 --> 00:12:31.588 And all that raises, of course, the question: What can we learn 00:12:31.588 --> 00:12:33.692 from those countries in the green quadrant 00:12:33.692 --> 00:12:35.967 who have achieved high levels of equity, 00:12:35.967 --> 00:12:39.699 high levels of performance, and raised outcomes? 00:12:39.699 --> 00:12:43.613 And, of course, the question is, can what works in one context 00:12:43.613 --> 00:12:46.329 provide a model elsewhere? 00:12:46.329 --> 00:12:49.659 Of course, you can't copy and paste education systems wholesale, 00:12:49.659 --> 00:12:53.586 but these comparisons have identified a range of factors 00:12:53.586 --> 00:12:56.907 that high-performing systems share. 00:12:56.907 --> 00:12:59.467 Everybody agrees that education is important. 00:12:59.467 --> 00:13:01.454 Everybody says that. 00:13:01.454 --> 00:13:04.709 But the test of truth is, how do you weigh that priority 00:13:04.709 --> 00:13:07.005 against other priorities? 00:13:07.005 --> 00:13:09.018 How do countries pay their teachers 00:13:09.018 --> 00:13:12.123 relative to other highly skilled workers? 00:13:12.123 --> 00:13:14.608 Would you want your child to become a teacher 00:13:14.608 --> 00:13:16.720 rather than a lawyer? 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:18.722 How do the media talk about schools and teachers? 00:13:18.722 --> 00:13:21.227 Those are the critical questions, and what we have learned 00:13:21.227 --> 00:13:25.321 from PISA is that, in high-performing education systems, 00:13:25.321 --> 00:13:28.871 the leaders have convinced their citizens to make choices 00:13:28.871 --> 00:13:31.249 that value education, their future, 00:13:31.249 --> 00:13:33.921 more than consumption today. 00:13:33.921 --> 00:13:35.967 And you know what's interesting? You won't believe it, 00:13:35.967 --> 00:13:38.953 but there are countries in which the most attractive place 00:13:38.953 --> 00:13:41.873 to be is not the shopping center but the school. 00:13:41.873 --> 00:13:44.140 Those things really exist. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:44.140 --> 00:13:46.113 But placing a high value on education 00:13:46.113 --> 00:13:48.964 is just part of the picture. 00:13:48.964 --> 00:13:51.993 The other part is the belief that all children 00:13:51.993 --> 00:13:55.428 are capable of success. 00:13:55.428 --> 00:13:57.189 You have some countries where students 00:13:57.189 --> 00:13:59.428 are segregated early in their ages. 00:13:59.428 --> 00:14:01.474 You know, students are divided up, 00:14:01.474 --> 00:14:03.809 reflecting the belief that only some children 00:14:03.809 --> 00:14:07.361 can achieve world-class standards. 00:14:07.361 --> 00:14:11.416 But usually that is linked to very strong social disparities. 00:14:11.416 --> 00:14:14.800 If you go to Japan in Asia, or Finland in Europe, 00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:16.906 parents and teachers in those countries 00:14:16.906 --> 00:14:20.817 expect every student to succeed, 00:14:20.817 --> 00:14:24.309 and you can see that actually mirrored in student behavior. 00:14:24.309 --> 00:14:27.025 When we asked students what counts 00:14:27.025 --> 00:14:29.761 for success in mathematics, 00:14:29.761 --> 00:14:32.153 students in North America would typically tell us, 00:14:32.153 --> 00:14:33.699 you know, it's all about talent. 00:14:33.699 --> 00:14:38.325 If I'm not born as a genius in math, I'd better study something else. 00:14:38.325 --> 00:14:41.051 Nine out of 10 Japanese students say 00:14:41.051 --> 00:14:45.297 that it depends on my own investment, on my own effort, 00:14:45.297 --> 00:14:50.032 and that tells you a lot about the system that is around them. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:50.032 --> 00:14:54.841 In the past, different students were taught in similar ways. 00:14:54.841 --> 00:14:58.173 High performers on PISA embrace diversity 00:14:58.173 --> 00:15:01.921 with differentiated pedagogical practices. 00:15:01.921 --> 00:15:03.897 They realize that 00:15:03.897 --> 00:15:07.041 ordinary students have extraordinary talents, 00:15:07.041 --> 00:15:10.401 and they personalize learning opportunities. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:10.401 --> 00:15:12.437 High-performing systems also share 00:15:12.437 --> 00:15:16.043 clear and ambitious standards across the entire spectrum. 00:15:16.043 --> 00:15:18.245 Every student knows what matters. 00:15:18.245 --> 00:15:22.332 Every student knows what's required to be successful. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:22.332 --> 00:15:25.197 And nowhere does the quality of an education system 00:15:25.197 --> 00:15:27.640 exceed the quality of its teachers. 00:15:27.640 --> 00:15:30.708 High-performing systems are very careful 00:15:30.708 --> 00:15:32.842 in how they recruit and select their teachers 00:15:32.842 --> 00:15:34.563 and how they train them. 00:15:34.563 --> 00:15:37.393 They watch how they improve the performances of teachers 00:15:37.393 --> 00:15:39.713 in difficulties who are struggling, 00:15:39.713 --> 00:15:42.622 and how they structure teacher pay. 00:15:42.622 --> 00:15:46.318 They provide an environment also in which teachers work together 00:15:46.318 --> 00:15:49.875 to frame good practice. 00:15:49.875 --> 00:15:54.036 And they provide intelligent pathways for teachers to grow 00:15:54.036 --> 00:15:56.151 in their careers. 00:15:56.151 --> 00:15:57.775 In bureaucratic school systems, 00:15:57.775 --> 00:15:59.768 teachers are often left alone in classrooms 00:15:59.768 --> 00:16:02.935 with a lot of prescription on what they should be teaching. 00:16:02.935 --> 00:16:06.145 High-performing systems are very clear what good performance is. 00:16:06.145 --> 00:16:08.919 They set very ambitious standards, but then they enable 00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:10.696 their teachers to figure out, 00:16:10.696 --> 00:16:14.811 what do I need to teach to my students today? 00:16:14.811 --> 00:16:19.357 The past was about delivered wisdom in education. 00:16:19.357 --> 00:16:24.599 Now the challenge is to enable user-generated wisdom. 00:16:24.599 --> 00:16:28.239 High performers have moved on from professional 00:16:28.239 --> 00:16:31.903 or from administrative forms of accountability and control -- 00:16:31.903 --> 00:16:35.140 sort of, how do you check whether people do what they're supposed to do in education -- 00:16:35.140 --> 00:16:38.806 to professional forms of work organization. 00:16:38.806 --> 00:16:42.678 They enable their teachers to make innovations in pedagogy. 00:16:42.678 --> 00:16:45.168 They provide them with the kind of development they need 00:16:45.168 --> 00:16:49.230 to develop stronger pedagogical practices. 00:16:49.230 --> 00:16:54.888 The goal of the past was standardization and compliance. 00:16:54.888 --> 00:16:57.622 High-performing systems have made teachers 00:16:57.622 --> 00:17:00.908 and school principals inventive. 00:17:00.908 --> 00:17:03.607 In the past, the policy focus was on outcomes, 00:17:03.607 --> 00:17:05.789 on provision. 00:17:05.789 --> 00:17:08.592 The high-performing systems have helped teachers 00:17:08.592 --> 00:17:11.033 and school principals to look outwards to the next teacher, 00:17:11.033 --> 00:17:13.726 the next school around their lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:13.726 --> 00:17:15.892 And the most impressive outcomes of world-class systems 00:17:15.892 --> 00:17:19.039 is that they achieve high performance across the entire system. 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:21.236 You've seen Finland doing so well on PISA, 00:17:21.236 --> 00:17:22.926 but what makes Finland so impressive 00:17:22.926 --> 00:17:26.903 is that only five percent of the performance variation 00:17:26.903 --> 00:17:29.359 amongst students lies between schools. 00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:31.675 Every school succeeds. 00:17:31.675 --> 00:17:34.406 This is where success is systemic. 00:17:34.406 --> 00:17:36.110 And how do they do that? 00:17:36.110 --> 00:17:38.802 They invest resources where they can make the most difference. 00:17:38.802 --> 00:17:43.910 They attract the strongest principals into the toughest schools, 00:17:43.910 --> 00:17:46.118 and the most talented teachers 00:17:46.118 --> 00:17:48.061 into the most challenging classroom. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:48.061 --> 00:17:51.190 Last but not least, those countries align policies 00:17:51.190 --> 00:17:53.410 across all areas of public policy. 00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:56.543 They make them coherent over sustained periods of time, 00:17:56.543 --> 00:18:01.246 and they ensure that what they do is consistently implemented. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:01.246 --> 00:18:03.550 Now, knowing what successful systems are doing 00:18:03.550 --> 00:18:06.341 doesn't yet tell us how to improve. 00:18:06.341 --> 00:18:08.799 That's also clear, and that's where some of the limits 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:12.274 of international comparisons of PISA are. 00:18:12.274 --> 00:18:14.977 That's where other forms of research need to kick in, 00:18:14.977 --> 00:18:17.435 and that's also why PISA doesn't venture into 00:18:17.435 --> 00:18:19.195 telling countries what they should be doing. 00:18:19.195 --> 00:18:21.018 But its strength lies in telling them 00:18:21.018 --> 00:18:23.773 what everybody else has been doing. 00:18:23.773 --> 00:18:25.969 And the example of PISA shows that data 00:18:25.969 --> 00:18:29.287 can be more powerful than administrative control of financial subsidy 00:18:29.287 --> 00:18:33.228 through which we usually run education systems. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:33.228 --> 00:18:36.266 You know, some people argue that 00:18:36.266 --> 00:18:38.454 changing educational administration 00:18:38.454 --> 00:18:40.895 is like moving graveyards. 00:18:40.895 --> 00:18:45.782 You just can't rely on the people out there to help you with this. (Laughter) 00:18:45.782 --> 00:18:50.649 But PISA has shown what's possible in education. 00:18:50.649 --> 00:18:54.454 It has helped countries to see that improvement is possible. 00:18:54.454 --> 00:18:58.662 It has taken away excuses from those who are complacent. 00:18:58.662 --> 00:19:02.095 And it has helped countries to set meaningful targets 00:19:02.095 --> 00:19:05.193 in terms of measurable goals achieved by the world's leaders. 00:19:05.193 --> 00:19:09.743 If we can help every child, every teacher, every school, 00:19:09.743 --> 00:19:13.398 every principal, every parent see what improvement is possible, 00:19:13.398 --> 00:19:16.134 that only the sky is the limit to education improvement, 00:19:16.134 --> 00:19:18.030 we have laid the foundations 00:19:18.030 --> 00:19:20.213 for better policies and better lives. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:20.213 --> 00:19:22.746 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:22.746 --> 00:19:26.746 (Applause)