Developing and Sustaining a High-Quality Teacher Force

This paper describes, in brief, the strategies used to develop and support high-quality teaching in three cities from different nations on three separate continents. The cities—Melbourne, Australia; Singapore; and Toronto, Canada—have developed a number of productive policies and practices that aim to create strong teaching and school leadership workforces in very different contexts. This brief highlights key findings drawn from more in-depth case studies, which look at each city’s work as it is nested in and shaped by its national- and state-policy contexts. It also draws out commonalities across the three cities and then focuses on particularly strategic examples of policies and practices related to:

• recruitment

• preparation

• induction

• ongoing professional learning opportunities

• evaluation

• leadership and career development

In what follows, we offer a glimpse of what well-developed systems look like in different contexts, so that policy makers and practitioners can consider a range of options that might be available and successful. By exploring other systems in depth, policy makers can see what the implementation challenges are, how others have dealt with them, and what remains to be solved. Common themes across the cases include the shared emphasis on:

• a systemic approach

• strong recruitment initiatives

• increasingly thoughtful preparation and mentoring

• purposeful support for ongoing learning

• proactive leadership development