In November 2007, McKinsey & Company published a study called How the World's Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top in which 25 school systems, including the 10 top performing school systems, are compared. The study identifies aspects that make the top systems come out on top. These aspects are very closely related to teacher quality and a provision of quality education to all children:

• Selecting the right people to become a teacher.
• Improving instruction through continuous professional development.
• Creating systems and targeted support to ensure that every child benefits from excellent instruction.

"The report is the outcome of an anlaysis of the achievements of the best performing school systems as defined by the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a survey of the current literature, and interviews with more than 100 experts, policymakers and practitioners."

The report can be downloaded from various internet websites (put the title of the report into a search engine), including the McKinsey website (scroll down to find the 9.8Mb PDF file).