Hoover Institution Press released The Best Teachers in the World: Why We Don’t Have Them and How We Could in which author John E. Chubb outlines a three-pronged strategy for raising teacher quality that is very different from the approach this country has historically followed. Chubb argues that, to develop the highest-achieving students in the world, the United States must attract, develop, and retain substantially stronger teachers, particularly if it wants to equal or surpass the achievement of top-performing nations in the world. The best achievement in the world requires the best teachers in the world—which US education policy has not been delivering.

John Chubb, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, and interim CEO of Education Sector, has written The Best Teachers in the World: Why We Don’t Have Them and How We Could, which will be released on October 10, 2012. In the book, Chubb argues that student achievement in the United States could rise to levels comparable to the best nations in the world if we could improve teacher quality.

The plight of low-performing students dominates our education news and policy discussions. Yet America’s high flyers also demand innovative, rigorous schooling, particularly if the country is to sharpen its economic and scientific edge.

On August 24 at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, DC, Hoover Institution senior fellow Chester Finn and Jessica Hockett discussed how motivated, high-ability youngsters can be served in myriad ways by public education, including schools that specialize in them. This is the focus of their new book from Princeton University Press, Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools. In the book, the coauthors identify 165 such high schools across the United States.

John E. Chubb, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, has been appointed interim chief executive officer at Education Sector, effective April 10, 2011. Chubb, a former board member, will replace Richard Lee Colvin, a noted journalist and editor, who is leaving his position to pursue new professional opportunities to write and reflect.