International educator compensation.

In the United Kingdom, teachers in areas with teacher shortages are forgiven their entire college tuition costs after serving for 10 years.

Danish teachers in remote schools are eligible for free accommodations, a home personal computer and access to wholesale shopping.

And in Sweden, salaries are negotiated based on the subject taught, school demographics, the school's needs, and the teacher's background, skills and performance.

These are a few reforms in use in foreign, high-cost countries, according to a report, Teacher and Principal Compensation: An International Review, by the Center for American Progress.

The U.S. is not alone in finding and keeping quality teachers in classrooms as more people are needed to have and teach in-depth skills. Last century teachers recruited from the bottom list of those entering college and then trained to provide a modest level of literacy, or one on par with eighth-grade literacy, are becoming obsolete, the report notes.

Many countries in Europe and South America are testing across-the-board salary adjustments for teachers and other incentives to get them to shortage areas.

But some differences lurk. For example, some nations with similar teacher-student ratios to the U.S. have larger class sizes, but the teachers, say in Japan, typically have more time to plan with other teachers, build curriculum and work with their students individually.

www.americanprogress.org

Teacher Hours

Hours per week in teacher contracts
in upper secondary school:

Iceland                    45
Rep. of Korea              44
Norway                     44
Australia                  36
U.S.                       33
England                    33
Scotland                   28
New Zealand                23

Source: Teacher and Principal Compensation
report, Center for American Progress