The great schools revolution Education remains the trickiest
part of attempts to reform the public sector. But as ever more
countries embark on it, some vital lessons are beginning to be
learned FROM Toronto to Wroclaw, London to Rome, pupils and
teachers have been returning to the classroom after their summer
break. But this September schools themselves are caught up in a
global battle of ideas. In many countries education is at the
forefront of political debate, and reformers desperate to
improve their national performance are drawing examples of good
practice from all over the world. Why now? One answer is the
sheer amount of data available on performance, not just within
countries but between them. In 2000 the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) at the OECD, a rich-
country club, began tracking academic attainment by the age of
15 in 32 countries. Many were shocked by where they came in the
rankings. (PISA's latest figures appear in table 1.) Other
outfits, too, have been measuring how go