Matt Kraft has a thread about a new OECD study looking at how American teachers compare with teachers in other developed countries. Or read the full study here.

In the context of the charter school debate, David Osborne makes the point that we’ve “privatized” all sorts of public services, from trash and recycling to Medicare and Medicaid. Even in the education sector, we spend billions of public dollars every year on privately provided early childhood and higher education services.

Join me and Education Week‘s Daarel Burnette II to talk about what education reporters need to know about teacher pensions.

On that front, Mike Antonucci has a quick dive into California pension figures.  This is right-on:

We tend to frame the pension issue as a thin line between school districts and the state on one side, and public employees on the other. But as pension obligations grow, it also becomes a tug-of-war between the 300,000 CalSTRS retirees and the 650,000 educators who are enrolled in CalSTRS but still working.

Mike Petrilli with a happy reminder that educational outcomes are trending upward, even if gaps remain and we’ve made more progress for younger than older students.

–Guest post by Chad Aldeman