Carol F. Stoel and Tin-Swe Thant, Council for Basic Education
March 18, 2002
Is it easy to recruit and retain good teachers in other countries? How competitive are the rewards of teaching around the globe? Are teachers abroad paid more for teaching subjects in which there is a shortage of qualified teachers? These are just some of the questions that this insightful survey-produced by the Council for Basic Education with support from the Milken Family Foundation-hopes to answer. The survey grows out of the work of the Council for Basic Education's Schools Around the World (SAW) program, a partnership of nine countries (France, Portugal, Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Japan, Germany and the US). The bottom line of "Teachers' Professional Lives" is that U.S. policy makers and educators can learn a lot about effective ways to train and maintain good teachers by studying what happens in other lands. Some highlights:
- Teachers are rarely held accountable for student achievement (the US and the UK are exceptions).
- Teachers in most countries are paid less (in some instances much less) than professionals in other fields requiring similar academic credentials. The obvious exception is Japan. The authors note there may be a correlation between how Japanese teachers are treated and the country's high level of academic achievement.
- Japan's teachers are among the top five percent of high school graduates who successfully pass the country's national university entrance exam, as well as a highly competitive pre-service exam.
- Japan is required by law to provide in-service training for teachers. Professional development activities occur year-round.
- A majority of U.S. teachers spend less than eight hours per year in professional development.
- Most countries in the survey face "acute shortages" of math and science teachers.
- In these countries, teachers are generally tenured and permanently employed after a probationary period of one to three years. Tenured teachers can rarely be dismissed for incompetence or for poor performance evaluations. As a result, teaching is usually seen as a life-long career.
To learn more, download the report as a PDF file at http://www.c-b-e.org/PDF/TeachersLife.pdf.
