Succeeding Globally

The world in which today's students will graduate is fundamentally different from the world in which we [adults] grew up. The quickening pace of globalization over the past 20 years—driven by profound technological changes, the rise of China and India, and the accelerating pace of scientific discovery—has produced a whole new world. As never before, education in the United States must prepare students for a world where the opportunities for success require the ability to compete and cooperate on a global scale. Yet a critical gap in our national ability to succeed globally is the lack of consistency in the quality and preparation of our nation’s teachers. Developing a world-class teacher and school leader workforce, equipped with the knowledge and skills to help our students succeed in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world, is a critical imperative for the nation and for higher education institutions.

In the twentieth century, the United States was the world leader in the development of universal elementary and secondary education and in the expansion of access to higher education. While U.S. higher education is still widely admired around the world, in the twenty-first century our K–12 education system and its students have been left behind. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which measures student achievement in reading, science, and math, U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 14th among OECD member countries on reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math in 2009. And compared to their peers in other