Chinezi Chijioke and Michael Barber

In 2010, McKinsey and Comapny published a report that focused on mapping the journeys of 20 of the best improving education systems world wide. They were selected because they "achieved significant, sustained and widespread gains in student outcomes from 1980 onwards". Quantitative data were reviewed from these systems and over 200 system leaders were interviewed, which resulted in the identification of 575 reform interventions. The report noted that "while the context does influence the emphasis and combination of interventions the system chooses from within this cluster, the intervention pattern is strikingly consistent for systems pursuing similar outcomes" (Mourshed, Chijioke and Barber, 2010, p. 24).