Center for Evidence-Based Education

1. Center for Evidence-Based Education North Carolina State Board of Education Raleigh, North Carolina Task Force on Global Education February 21, 2012 Global Benchmarking: Performance, Practice, and Policy David Green, President Center for Evidence-Based Education

2. Global Benchmarking “Comparing your school to a neighboring school is no longer sufficient; you must compare your school, your district, and your county (state) to the best performers in the world.” Andreas Schleicher Head, Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) October, 2011: Is the Sky the Limit to Education Improvement?

3. Global Benchmarking No educational performance, practice and policy “can be properly understood except by reference to the web of inherited ideas and values, habits and customs, institutions and world views which make one country, or one region, or one group, distinct from another” Robin Alexander, 2000, Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education

4. Collaborative Intelligence! Adelsheim Clendenen Drouhin McKenna

5. A Global Practice Grattan Institute, Melbourne, Australia, February 2012

6. Recent US Publications PasiSahlberg, Finish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland, Teachers College Press, 2011 Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems, Harvard Education Press, 2011 Vivien Stewart, A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation, ASCD, 2012

7. Who Benchmarks? Currently: Academic Researchers, Federal & State Officials Henceforth: Practitioners – Teachers, Principals & Superintendents

8. Benchmarking: Whose Responsibility? First and foremost, A State Responsibility!

9. Benchmarking in Practice Ontario: Current population = 12,851,821 Finland: Current population = 5,259,250 New Jersey: Current population = 8,791,894 Alberta: Current population = 3,645,257 Austria: Current population = 8,414,638 USA: Current population = 312,401,109 England: Current population = 51,446,000 Shanghai: Current population = 23,019,148 North Carolina: Current population = 9,656,401 Singapore: Current population = 4,987,600 Australia: Current population = 22,328,800

10. Benchmarking as Exploring “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time” T.S. Eliot, 1942, “Little Gidding” – Four Quartets

11. Benchmarking: Sources • Influential Current Sources • Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), • Progress in International Reading Literacy Study • (PIRLS) • Program for International Student Assessment • (PISA) • (“How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better,” McKinsey & Company, 2010)

12. Benchmarking: Performance, Practice, and Policy • Examples: • Leadership: • Austrian Leadership Academy • Strategic Networking: • The Schools Network • (England) + • The Aquarium Project • (Finland) & • The Alberta School • Improvement Initiative • (Canada)

13. Austrian Leadership Academy A Lesson in Learning! Adelsheim Clendenen Drouhin Principle 1: Work with the whole system in large group arrangements, led by innovation catalysts not by the representatives of the status quo McKenna

14. Principle 2: Involve all types of schools and all levels of the system Hierarchical System State & District Officials Principals Teacher-Leaders Dynamic System

15. Principle 3: Build networks rather than a building – focus on ways of thinking, ways of acting, ways of collaborating, on innovation Whose Responsibility? Education is a State Responsibility, Benchmark not only at the National/Federal level, but also at the State level

16. The Schools Network, England (The Aquarium Project, Finland, & The Alberta School Improvement Initiative, Canada) • The Schools Network: • Raising Achievement, Transforming Learning (RATL); • Leading Edge; (3) Gaining Ground • — Strategic Networking — • By Schools, With Schools, For Schools • — For Students

17. Strategic Networking: Evaluated Strategic Networking “ … a unique and sophisticated model that yielded early and measurable benefits in student achievement in two-thirds of the project schools. The model is practically based in experience, yet also intelligently informed by evidence. (It) combines a sense of urgency and a push for success with a culture of optimism and inspiration that leads educators to understand and appreciate that, with some outside assistance, the solutions to raising achievement lie within their own professional hands.” Professors Andy Hargreaves & Dennis Shirley, Boston College, 2007

18. Strategic Networking – Lateral Accountability Dependent Decentralized Distributed Specialist Schools & Academies Trust, UK David Hargreaves: Innovation Networks in Action (Adapted)

19. Strategic Networking (and Benchmarking) in Practice • Verifying Performance, Practice, & Policy (P3) – Learning by Verification • Benchmarking P3 • Exploring & Probing P3 • Distinctively Innovating & Enacting P3 • Communicating & • Sharing P3 • Experimenting & Developing P3

20. Benchmarking: Isolation, the Enemy of Innovation • Innovation: • Observing • Questioning • Thinking • Experimenting • Networking • Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, & Clayton M. Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA”

21. Global Benchmarking: Systemic Urgency “Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.” Gabriela Mistral, 1946, Llamadopor el Niño (The Call for the Child)

22. For Further Information on this Presentation Please contact: David Green, President Center for Evidence-Based Education (CEBE) 116 Village Boulevard, Suite 200 Princeton, New Jersey 08540-5799 Tel: (609) 951-2205 davidgreen@cebe.us www.cebe.us