Statement from Randi Weingarten,
President, American Federation of Teachers,
On New Report, “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education”

Report from the National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers and Achieve Inc. encourages United States to adopt effective education practices from high-performing countries.

WASHINGTON— AFT has long supported common standards. We believe that all states should have uniform, coherent and rigorous content standards.  “Benchmarking for Success” advances this notion by encouraging states and school districts to think and look globally to raise expectations and close the achievement gap.

We concur with many of the strong recommendations found in “Benchmarking for Success,” particularly the idea of revising state policies for recruiting, developing and supporting teachers and school leaders. There is much to learn from countries that have moved to a more professionalized model of teaching, in which teachers are constantly learning from one another, improving their skills and applying evidence-based strategies to teaching. We feel—as the report suggests—that states should study teacher recruitment, retention practices and working conditions from high-performing nations and then use what we learn from them to develop our own policies. 

We strongly agree with the report’s recommendation to upgrade state standards with a common core of internationally benchmarked standards in math and language arts, and to align curriculum, professional development, classroom resources and assessments to those standards. Additionally, the AFT advocates for a broad, rich curriculum by returning the liberal arts to its place alongside math and language arts. Decades ago, the AFT helped shine the light on the fact that American students were not expected to learn at the level that many industrialized nations expect of their students. The alignment of materials and curricula to strong standards will help ensure that students are equipped with the knowledge and skills to be globally competitive.

Improving U.S. education requires an open-minded discussion of reforms, especially when they come from other nations. But when comparing, it’s important to keep in mind that countries handle education policy and funding differently, which affects outcomes. U.S. teachers face unique challenges in their daily work, including often difficult working conditions, constantly changing agendas and leadership, and fad-of-the-month reforms.

We applaud the efforts of the organizations that produced “Benchmarking for Success,” but strongly suggest that the voice of teachers needs to be included as these groups and the states proceed with their work on these important issues. 

# # # #