What is the most importantschool-related factor in studentlearning? The answer is

teachers. The trouble is the effectiveness ofindividual teachers and schools varieswidely. A critical issue for any country thathopes to keep its education systeminternationally competitive is how torecruit, retain, develop and nurture a high-quality teaching force.

In 2005, the OECD released TeachersMatter: Attracting, Developing and RetainingEffective Teachers, which comprehensivelyreviewed teacher policies in 25 countries.The report confirmed how prevalent theconcern is across nations about the supply

and quality of teachers. The Aspen InstituteEducation and Society Program, a thinktank based in Washington, D.C.,collaborated with the OECD to invite abouttwo dozen leading policymakers,researchers and practitioners from eightcountries–Australia, Canada, England,Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland andthe US–to a seminar in Bellagio, Italy, lastautumn. The task was to delve more deeplyinto key issues raised in the OECD study,and to explore ways to strengthen teachingpolicies. Each country brought its particularculture, tradition and circumstances, butthe participants all shared a commoninterest in strengthening and restructuringthe teaching profession.

Now is the time for such thinking, for asthe OECD report notes, in most countriesfar more new teachers will enter theprofession in the next five to ten years thanat any time since the 1970s. That newgeneration of teachers, at least in the US,will look different too. The retiring cohortof teachers entered the profession in the

late 1960s and early 1970s, when manywomen and people from ethnic minoritieshad limited access to other lines of workand were content to stay as classroomteachers, earning relatively modest salaries,for their entire careers.

In contrast, in many countries the incominggeneration of teachers has many more joboptions that probably pay more, havehigher status, and provide better workingconditions. Also, people no longer look atteaching as a lifelong career. In the US, 30% of new teachers leave within threeyears. Half are gone within five years.Ironically, studies show that the best andthe academically brightest are more likelyto leave. At the same time, career changershave been entering teaching from otherlines of work, bringing with themheightened expectations.

The competitive labour market in the USand other countries also has heightenedconcerns about how to attract adequatetalent into teaching. Many experts worrythat individuals choosing to becometeachers are generally less talented, lessambitious, less curious, less diversedemographically, and more risk-adversethan the workforce as a whole. As StefanWolter, the director of the SwissCoordination Centre for Research inEducation, put it, to make sure they aregetting the best, countries need to considerhow their teacher policies affect not onlythe existing teacher force, but also thosewith the potential to become teachers.

But that also means focusing on theconditions under which teachers work. AsChristopher Spence, the director of theHamilton-Wentworth District School Boardin Ontario, Canada, noted: “Put a goodteacher in a bad system, and the systemwins every single time.”

Starting outConsider the case of new teachers. Evencountries with rigorous teacher-preparationprogrammes recognise that new teachers

27OECD Observer No. 261 May 2007

SOCIETYTeachers

Concerns about the supplyand quality of teachers aregenerating new policies inmany OECD countries.Here’s why.

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Robert B. Schwartz, Harvard Graduate School of Education Judy Wurtzel, Aspen Institute Education and Society ProgramLynn Olson, Education Week

teachers

The best and the academicallybrightest are more likely to leaveteaching.

retainingThey both need answers

gAttractingand

need extensive support and learning on thejob. Research documents that new teachersstruggle with similar issues in their first fewyears in the classroom, including classroommanagement, dealing with differencesamong students, assessing student work,motivating students to learn, interactingwith colleagues, and communicating withparents. To help teachers cope with theseprofessional demands, countries such asSwitzerland, Japan and the US are creatingspecial induction programmes.

In Japan, for example, the first year ofteaching includes about 90 days ofintensive, subsidised training, in and out ofschool. Each new teacher is assigned anexperienced teacher to act as a mentor orguide, and both parties are given reducedteaching responsibilities so they can worktogether effectively throughout the year. InSwitzerland, almost all cantons haveinduction programmes that novice teachersmust complete to be fully certified. ForHeinz Rhyn, who directs the department ofquality assurance for the Swiss Conferenceof Cantonal Ministers of Education,“newcomers face specific problems, and wehave to help them get over these problems.”

In the US, Peer Assistance and ReviewPrograms, operated under joint agreementsbetween unions and school districts in suchcities as Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo,Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y., are designed, inpart, to identify who is likely to be aneffective teacher and who is not, and todismiss or counsel the latter before theyreceive tenure. New teachers also use thisscheme to decide whether teaching really isthe right job for them.

Developing a working environment that ismore conducive to teaching and learning, forexample, by matching assignments to skills,and providing a sense of leadership, vocationand teamwork, is also key to increasingteachers’ effectiveness and keeping them inthe classroom. In Ontario, Canada’s Literacyand Numeracy Strategy is a major initiativedesigned to have all students read, write, domath, and comprehend at a high level by age 12. Reducing primary class sizes is partof the strategy, and providing intensivetraining in how to teach literacy andnumeracy effectively is also provided. The

initiative has also increased the number of“lead teachers” in the primary grades, whoshare best practices with other teachers intheir schools.

The common element in all countries is therecognition that good teaching is anintellectual enterprise, in which teachersdraw upon knowledge and evidence tosolve problems particular to their school.Retaining and supporting effective teachersmeans making them part of thatknowledge-generating enterprise, not justpassive recipients of prescriptions handeddown from above.

But policies also have to address issues ofteacher pay and the potential for careergrowth. According to the OECD report, inthe last 20 years, in most countries teachers’salaries have declined relative to otheroccupations that require similar levels ofeducation and training. Moreover, in 70%

of the countries studied, the report foundthat it takes at least 20 years for lowersecondary teachers to move from thebottom to the top of the salary scale, whichis long compared with many otherprofessions nowadays.

To help make teaching a more attractivecareer choice, many countries are creatingnew roles and responsibilities for teachersthat reward their expertise without takingthem out of the classroom. Creating astronger connection between teachers’contributions and the pay and otherrewards they receive will be central inredesigning teaching for the nextgeneration.

Among the countries participating in theAspen-OECD seminar, Singapore hasarguably the most developed career systemfor teachers, with a performance-based payplan in place for about a decade. Morerecently, the government has created threecareer tracks for teachers: a leadership

track, a specialist track and a teaching track.The “teaching track” caters to the majorityof educators, who want to focus onachieving excellence in the classroom.Within that track, teachers can move upfrom a “senior teacher” to a “master teacher”with their pay rising to reflect both theirexpertise and additional responsibilities.The track approach helps the school keepthe really good teachers in the classroom,says Wong Siew Hoong, the director ofschools for the ministry of education.

The US also has promising ingredients forthe development of a full-fledged teachercareer and compensation system. Nearly50,000 US teachers have earned recognitionfrom the National Board for ProfessionalTeaching Standards, a voluntary assessmentprogramme that certifies accomplishedteachers who have met professionalstandards. A growing number of states anddistricts are also experimenting with payingteachers based on their performance.

In today’s knowledge-based global economy,schools and teaching must evolve. While nocountry can simply transpose the teachingpolicies of another, “there is tremendouslearning to be gained from looking at morecomprehensive international examples andcutting-edge states and districts,” arguesArlene Ackerman, a professor at TeachersCollege, Columbia University.

There is much work to be done, and theexamples in the Aspen-OECD work suggestways the profession might change to helpteachers become more effective in theclassroom and make teaching a trulycompetitive career choice.

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ReferencesFor a longer report on the Aspen-OECD seminarand profiles and analyses of teaching policies inthe 8 participating nations, visit the AspenInstitute website atwww.aspeninstitute.org/education/teachingpolicyOECD (2005), Teachers Matter: Attracting,Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers,OECD, Paris.Clarke, Kieran (2004), “Was it worth it?Reflections on a teaching career”, OECD ObserverNo 244, September.Visit www.oecd.org/education andwww.oecdobserver.org/education

More states and districts in theUS are experimenting withpaying teachers based on theirperformance.