How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better

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How does a school system with poor performance become good? And how does one with good performance become excellent?


McKinsey’s latest education report is the follow-up to the 2007 publication "How the world's best performing school systems come out on top," in which McKinsey examined the common attributes of high-performing school systems.

McKinsey compiled what they believe is the most comprehensive analysis of global school system reform ever assembled. This report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems everywhere as well as what it really takes to achieve significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes.

This new report, "How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better," analyzed twenty systems from around the world, all with improving but differing levels of performance, examining how each has achieved significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes, as measured by international and national assessments.

Based on over 200 interviews with system stakeholders and analysis of some 600 interventions carried out by these systems this report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems elsewhere as they move from poor to fair to good to great to excellent performance.

The systems studied were: Armenia, Aspire (a US charter school system), Boston (Massachusetts), Chile, England, Ghana, Hong Kong, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Long Beach (California), Madhya Pradesh (India), Minas Gerais (Brazil), Ontario (Canada), Poland, Saxony (Germany), Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, and Western Cape (South Africa).