Giving Compass' Take:

• The World Bank developed an open source classroom observation tool that will strengthen teacher instruction in low-and-middle income countries.

• How can philanthropists support efforts to advance the SDGs in education?

• Read about how Bill Gates called for better global education initiatives. 

How to raise children’s learning outcomes, especially among those most disadvantaged, is not just the focus of education policymakers in the U.S. It’s a global problem and has attracted much attention. Education is listed fourth among the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, following poverty, hunger, and health.

Today, nine in ten children in low-income countries cannot read nor do basic math by the end of their time in elementary school. Business, as usual, will not deliver the transforming change needed.

The World Bank Group, a provider of financial and technical assistance to developing countries, knows this. As I’ve written previously, the World Bank understands the important connection between measuring progress and getting results.

In developing countries, data on education quality are rare. There are few countries with comparable learning outcome measures and even fewer countries with reliable measures of teaching practice. The World Bank, noting this gap and the necessary connection between better teaching and better learning, has launched a new tool called TEACH to help define and measure effective teaching practices.

TEACH is an open source classroom observation tool designed to be used in low- and middle-income countries. It comes with an in-depth explanation of how instructional practices are to be identified and how teachers are to be scored.

Designing a great instrument, however, is only part of the challenge. If the instrument is to achieve the team’s goals and bring about improvement, the World Bank needs to help school system leaders view teachers as products of their system, not as causes of its failure.

My experience co-directing the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching project (MET) taught me three things I believe could help the World Bank strengthen its guidance to school systems, avoid likely pitfalls, and realize its vision for this potentially powerful tool.

Read the full article about TEACH by Steve Cantrell at Education Next