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collaboration is the key indeed. unfortunately we seem stuck in a "my way is *the* way" loop.

if we start to seriously look at, and implement, the key themes you've outlined, we'll at the very least be going in the right direction.

but that seems obvious.

the last two themes also caught most of my attention. I'd be interested to see how these other countries finance education. From what I understand, education in the US is not underfunded - when compared to other nations - (although it does fluctuate, sometimes drastically, between states) and the majority of the funding actually goes to teacher salaries. What then, are the lessons to be learned?

The last point on the unions is misleading. While the teachers in these other countries are unionized, the unions' role is vastly different from the one here in the US. There actually exists a collaborative partnership between union, gov't and management. Not that the US unions should be dissolved (as many extremists would like to argue) but they too must make some dramatic changes. Changes, which I'll add, they don't seem too eager to want to make.

For a look at progressive unionism in public education, consider Teacher Union Reform Network www.turnexchange.net and the chapter in Teaching 2030 on professional guilds http://www.teachingquality.org/publications/teaching-2030-book

In WV, teacher unions perpetuate a labor-management polarization vs. the type of relationship that exists in the countries you reference.

Why collaboration? Why discourse at all? We believe that student learning comes from making sense of natural phenomena. Don't all people learn the same or is it just kids? It seems collaboration provides teachers with the identical opportunities we hope for students to make sense of disparate information, generalize, look for truth to connect to previous learning, and solve subsequent problems.

How can we advocate for discourse based sense making in the classroom but then assume teachers learn differently?

Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses. On the specific issue of funding, the US is the only developed country that pays for its public schools primarily through local property taxes, thus insuring inequity from the funding standpoint, though the federal government attempts to address that with funds targeted to low income students. And, given public schooling is financed and governed locally, it also adds a wrinkle to national test scores since our level of diversity in all things that are measured is greater than any of the other international comparisons. My understanding is that among our middle and upper middle class communities, student test scores are among the highest. Where the US falls down is in achievement among its economically disadvantaged students, which is not the case in other high performing countries.

The same can be said for unionism and teaching: it depends on the district as to the collaborative nature of the relationship. Successful school districts typically have a collaborative relationship with the local teachers' union.

And, yes, collaboration, trust, and mutual respect are the hallmarks of any high achieving organization and school districts are no different.