This study looks at what factors make a successful school and how these factore vary in different countries. The authors follow the progress of a cohort of seven-year-old children through their schools over a two-year period. Examining schools in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, and Ireland, the authors draw together what it is that the most and least effective schools do in each country; pinpoint what makes "effective teaching" across the globe; analyze which effectiveness-producing school and teaching factors appear to be the same and which are context specific; and discuss how educational policies can be used to generate world class schools and which new trends of practice can, or should be used.