The U.S. Department of Education together with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Education International (EI) and U.S.-based organizations—National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Asia Society, and WNET hosted the first International Summit on the Teaching Profession March 16-17, 2011, in New York. The summit was the first of its kind, designed to engage countries in a discussion about promising practices for recruiting, preparing, developing, supporting, retaining, evaluating, and compensating world-class teachers.

The summit assembled education ministers, national union leaders and accomplished teachers from countries with high performing and rapidly improving educational systems (based on the results of PISA 2009). In addition to the United States, the invited countries and regions were Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, People's Republic of China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Each country's delegation included the education minister, the leader(s) of the one or two largest national teacher union(s), and up to two additional teacher leaders. U.S. state and national education leaders—chief state school officers, state union presidents, teachers of the year, and heads of the major education associations—were also invited to listen and to participate in question-and-answer sessions.

Organizers, led by the Asia Society, collaborated to produce a publication on key lessons, Improving Teacher Quality Around the World.

The 2012 International Summit on the Teaching Profession will be held March 14-15, in New York.

International Summit on the Teaching Profession Main Page

2013 International Summit on the Teaching Profession

2012 International Summit on the Teaching Profession