One of the ultimate goals of policy makers is to enable citizens to take advantage of a globalised world economy. This is leading them to focus on the improvement of education policies, ensuring the quality of service provision, a more equitable distribution of learning opportunities and stronger incentives for greater efficiency in schooling.

Since school is where most learning happens, what happens in school has a direct impact on learning. In turn, what happens in school is influenced by the resources, policies and practices approved at higher administrative levels in a country’s education system.

Are students well prepared to meet the challenges of the future? Can they analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Have they found the kinds of interests they can pursue throughout their lives as productive members of the economy and society? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seeks to answer these questions through its triennial surveys of key competencies of 15-year-old students in OECD member countries and partner countries/economies. Together, the group of countries participating in PISA represents nearly 90% of the world economy.1

How do resources for education, and education policies and practices relate to reading performance? And what is their relationship with the socio-economic background of countries, schools and students? This chapter presents a summary of selected features shared by “successful” school systems, defined by relatively high-achieving students and greater equity in learning outcomes, because socio-economic background has only a moderate impact on performance.

By focusing on selected organisational features of schools and school systems, this chapter details how resources, policies and practices relate to student performance, and how far positive relationships at the school level translate into positive relationships at the level of the education system. The chapter also discusses how the environment within schools affects learning outcomes.

This chapter provides detailed descriptions and in-depth analyses of selected organisational features of schools and systems that affect student performance. These include how students are sorted into grades, schools and programmes, school autonomy, school competition, how schools and school systems use student assessments, and resources devoted to education.

Students perform better in orderly classrooms and with the support of engaged teachers and parents. Using reports from students, school principals and, for some countries, parents, this chapter describes and analyses six key aspects of the learning environment: teacher and student behaviours that affect learning, the disciplinary climate, teacher-student relations, how teachers stimulate students’ engagement in reading, parents’ involvement in and expectation of schooling, and school principals’ leadership.

Many nations declare that they are committed to children and education. This is put to the test when these commitments come up against other considerations. How do such nations pay teachers compared to the way they pay other professionals with the same level of education? When people are being considered for jobs, how are education credentials weighed against other qualifications ? Would you want your child to be a teacher? How much attention do the media pay to schools and schooling? When it comes down to it, which matters more: a community’s standing in the sports leagues or its standing in the school league tables? Are parents more likely to encourage their children to study longer and harder or would they want them to spend more time with their friends, participating in community activities, or taking part in sporting activities?