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The publications produced by the talented researchers and academics working with NCEE have proved to be some of the most groundbreaking and influential manifestos on the problems facing our educational system today. The following is a comprehensive list of books, publications and presentations from NCEE and NCEE’s affiliated programs.

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Vocational Education and Training for a Global Economy: Lessons from Four Countries
Vocational education and training (VET) systems can play a critical role in economic development, according to this new book published by Harvard Education Press and edited by Marc Tucker. The book provides in-depth case studies of the VET systems of Switzerland, Singapore, China, and the United States, detailing how their VET systems have evolved over time and how they relate to each country’s economy.

Early AdvantageThe Early Advantage: Two Book Series
As educators and policymakers around the globe grapple with how to best serve their youngest learners, a few systems are taking the lead. In the first volume of this two part series, lead researcher Sharon Lynn Kagan and her team of international experts take readers on a deep dive into the policies and practices of six leading systems. The second volume offers scores of concrete examples, as well as multiple strategies, considerations, and approaches useful to leaders worldwide.

Early AdvantageLeading High-Performance School Systems: Lessons from the World’s Best
Marc Tucker, who for five decades has shaped the face of educational improvement in the U.S. and across the world, details how education leaders can design and build highly effective systems by learning from the international education systems that produce much higher achievement with greater equity and often at the same or lower cost.

KOF Education-Employment LinkageComparing International Vocational Education and Training Programs
From Ursula Renolds of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute in Zurich comes this comparative report which defines and measures the linkage between VET education and employment systems, then uses it to compare the largest upper-secondary VET programs from 20 countries. Click to read the policy brief or the full report, including country profiles.

Preparing to LeadPreparing to Lead: Lessons in Principal Development from High-Performing Education Systems
Authored by Australian researcher Ben Jensen, the report finds that many of the world’s best education systems are providing current and future school leaders with leadership development that is specifically tailored to their unique context, mirrors their day-to-day responsibilities and is focused on real-world problems.

Empowered EducatorsEmpowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World
From Linda Darling-Hammond and a global team of education researchers, comes this groundbreaking international comparative study of teacher and teaching quality in the world’s top-performing education systems. This three-year study investigated seven jurisdictions across four continents to produce unparalleled insights for U.S. educators, researchers and policymakers.

Not So Elementary CoverNot So Elementary: Primary School Teacher Quality on Top-Performing Systems
From leading Australian researcher Ben Jensen, this report gives new insights into a critical driver of the success of the world’s top-performing education systems—developing elementary teachers with deep content knowledge.

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BeyondPDcoversmallBeyond PD: Teacher Professional Learning in High-Performing Systems
From leading Australian researcher Ben Jensen, this report analyzes the way four high-performing systems provide professional learning to their teachers. While these systems are quite different, the key to all of them is that collaborative professional learning (teachers working with other teachers to improve curriculum, instruction, school climate, etc.) is built into the daily lives of teachers and school leaders.

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ShanghaiTeachersCoversmallDeveloping Shanghai’s Teachers
This report, from former Shanghai Normal University President and Shanghai Education Commission Deputy Director Minxuan Zhang’s report, offers an insider’s perspective into the world-leading Shanghai education system.

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ChinaVETwebMade in China: Challenge and Innovation in China’s Vocational and Technical Education System
As China embarks on a bold plan to transform its economy from one built on low-cost, low-skill exports to an economic model based on services, innovation, and consumer demand, it will need to evaluate and adapt the structure, organization and scale of its VET system—the largest such system in the world.

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SwissWebcoverGold Standard: The Swiss Vocational Education and Training System
Authors Nancy Hoffman of Jobs for the Future and Robert Schwartz of the Harvard Graduate School of Education shed new light on the Swiss VET system, how businesses play—and benefit from—a central role in the training of a highly skilled workforce, and the seamless connections between VET and the broader Swiss education system.

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Singapore VETThe Phoenix: Vocational Education and Training in Singapore
Stability, a commitment to implementation, a strong compulsory education system, aligned and coherent planning, a strong link to the national economic development strategy and to business—these are a few of the things that set the Singapore Vocational Education and Training system apart.

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Fixing Our National Accountability SystemFixing Our National Accountability System
This report calls for replacing the current U.S. system of test-based accountability with a system much more likely to result in improvements in student performance. In it, Marc Tucker points out that the current system has failed to improve the performance of the at-risk students it was designed to help, alienated the best of our current teachers and created an environment in which able young people choosing careers are less likely to choose teaching.

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Chinese LessonsChinese Lessons: Shanghai’s Rise to the Top of the PISA League Tables
This compilation of interviews with top Chinese education leaders and international researchers explores some of the policies and practices behind Shanghai’s outstanding performance on PISA 2009 and PISA 2012. The interviews include perspectives from Kai-ming Cheng, Tom Corcoran, Ben Jensen, Vivien Stewart, and Minzuan Zhang.

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What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready?What Does It Really Mean to be College and Work Ready?
A study of the English Literacy and Mathematics required for success in the first year of community college, with implications for community college reform, school reform, teacher education, the common core state standards, and vocational education and the workplace.

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Governing American EducationGoverning American Education
Marc Tucker outlines the school governance structures used in the top-performing countries around the world in an effort to draw out lessons for the United States. The report argues that school governance might be the most important topic in American education today and that we will not be able to meet the challenges that now face us until we rethink the way we approach education policy.

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Teachers, Their Unions and the American Education Reform AgendaTeachers, Their Unions and the American Education Reform Agenda
One would never guess that the countries that are among the top ten in student performance have some of the strongest teachers unions in the world. Are those unions in some way different from American teachers unions? This report addresses that question by comparing teachers and their unions in Canada and Northern Europe with those in the United States.

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Standing on the Shoulders of GiantsStanding on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform
This paper is the answer to a question: What would the education policies and practices of the United States be if they were based on the policies and practices of the countries that now lead the world in student performance? It is adapted from the last two chapters of Surpassing Shanghai.

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Surpassing ShanghaiSurpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems
An in depth look at the education systems that are leading the world in student performance to find out what strategies are working and how they might apply to the United States, this book provides a series of answers to the question of how the United States can compete with the world’s best.

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Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in EducationStrong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education
How have the countries at the top managed to achieve sustained high performance or to significantly improve their performance? This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy from their reform trajectories.

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The Principal ChallengeThe Principal Challenge
Marc Tucker, Judy Codding, and a stellar list of experts from the United States and abroad paint a revealing portrait of what it means to be a principal now, how and why most graduate schools of education have failed to provide the training principals need, what the military and business sectors do to create and support their leaders and managers, what the state of the art in professional training looks like, what other nations are doing to address this problem, and how to apply the very best practices in the world to solve the crisis in school leadership.

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The New American High SchoolThe New American High School
This book is designed for the leadership of reform at the high school, district, and state levels; for policymakers instrumental in these reforms; and to university faculty and graduate students in education. It will be a valuable resource in courses on leadership, administration, policy, curriculum and instruction, and change facilitation.

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Standards for Our SchoolsStandards for Our Schools
This timely, tough-minded book shows how American public schools can be saved by instituting high standards for academic achievement. It explains not just what the standards movement is about and why it is important, but also what it will take to bring every student up to high standards, no matter where that student starts.

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Belgian innovationscoversmallCountry Background Reports
Over several decades NCEE has been studying what makes the best education systems in the world stand out. Click to browse a set of Country Background Reports on the development and implementation of some of the worlds leading education systems, including Flemish Belgium, Canada, Denmark, China, Finland, England, Ireland, the Czech Republic, India and Italy.

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workforcecoverWorkforce Development Program PublicationsArchive
NCEE’s Workforce Development Program provided policymakers, states, localities, and others the advice and assistance needed to build comprehensive workforce development systems that meet the needs of America’s workers, jobseekers, and employers. In 2009, the WDSG joined forces with Jobs for the Future and created a new Workforce and Education Policy Group to forward this mission. An archive of WDSG publications is available here.

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tctt-coverTough Choices or Tough Times State Consortium Publications Archive
An archive of publications from a group of leading-edge states working to implement the recommendations in the report, Tough Choices or Tough Times.

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New StandardsNew Standards

New Standards is a joint project of the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh and the National Center on Education and the Economy. Beginning in 1991 the project culminated in the publication of New Standards Performance Standards, a set of internationally competitive performance standards in English language arts, mathematics, science and applied learning at the 4th, 8th and 10th grade levels. The standards are no longer in print, but can be downloaded here in PDF form.

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anationpreparedA Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century

The Report of the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, from the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy

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