International Schools and Quality Markers

There is a fascinating thread of postings on the International School Review blog site in response to a query about what makes a Tier 1, Tier 2 or lower tier international school.  The blog is designated for use by educators rather than parents, so all of the postings in this thread come from people who are or have been working in an international school (many of the examples are in Asia).  Putting aside a few bitter postings from people who have apparently had quite traumatic experiences in one place or another, a few themes emerge that are worth noting:

• Ownership/governance factors into many views of tiers, with both the type and quality being important;
• Salaries and benefits are correlates of both teacher satisfaction and how much governance and management value employees;
• Equity between local and foreign personnel also correlates with employee satisfaction and general attitude; and
• Accreditation by a major agency or even the IB is not by itself a predictor of quality.

By far, the issue that generated the most heated comments pertained to ownership and governance; specifically, whether for-profit status automatically should lower a school's tier.  Also contentious was whether being a school predominately (or exclusively) populated by host-country nationals as students and foreign hires as teachers also denotes a lower tier.

What struck me of all of this was the apparent disconnect between imprimatur in the form of IB or CIS status and how these educators perceive quality.  I wonder what parents would say--my experience with them suggests that they will have the opposite view.