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"WASHINGTON - American higher education is the envy of the world, with the most renowned universities attracting young men and women from around the globe. Stories from Our Advertisers As Americans consider college possibilities, the choices are terrific: large and small, public and private, in every region, along with a robust community-college system that is a gateway for many immigrants and for training older workers."

"This blog is another in the series devoted to proposing reforms in the American education system based on the strategies that the countries with the most successful education systems in the world have been using. In this blog, I address the reforms that are needed in the initial preparation of teachers. Almost two years ago, our Center for International Education Benchmarking gave Linda Darling-Hammond and a global team of researchers she assembled a large grant to do a multi-year international comparative study of teacher quality. The issue of initial teacher preparation is one of the topics addressed in that study. The research for the teacher quality study has been done, and the analysis is in progress. The results should be available in a few months. The conclusions and proposals in this blog draw on research we and other scholars have done, including other research done by Professor Darling-Hammond, but not in the forthcoming book. "

"Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it's enough to say that the role is shifting from "content expert" to "curriculum facilitator." Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation's most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The "virtual class" will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country's best teachers (a.k.a. a "super-teacher"), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record. "

"John B. King Jr. takes over as acting secretary of education Jan. 1, assuming the position with barely more than one year left in President Barack Obama's second term. "