In the 20th century, the United States was the world leader in education—the first country to achieve universal secondary education and the first to expand higher education beyond the elite class. Now other countries are catching up and leaping ahead—in high school graduation rates, in the quality and equity of their K–12 education systems, and in the proportion of students graduating from college. It is not that American education has gotten worse so much that education in other parts of the world has gotten so much better, so fast.
Designed to promote conversation about how to educate students for a rapidly changing and increasingly borderless and innovation-based world, A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation, is not about casting blame; it is