In an effort to find best practices in enhancing teacher effectiveness, the Alliance for Excellent Education (Alliance) and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) looked abroad at education systems that appear to have well-developed and effective systems for recruiting, preparing, developing, and retaining teachers and school leaders. The goal was not to find policies that could be imported wholesale to the United States; rather, the idea was to learn from international examples and see if lessons could be applied in the U.S. context. For its examination of teacher effectiveness policies, the Alliance and SCOPE looked to Finland, Ontario, and Singapore. These jurisdictions have attracted a great deal of attention in United States education policy circles recently, and with good reason. Most significantly, they get good results: they are among the highest-performing jurisdictions in international tests of student achievement, and their results are among the most equitable in the world. Finland, Ontario, and Singapore also provide important lessons for discussions of policies to develop teacher and school leader effectiveness. All attribute their educational success in large measure to their efforts to recruit, prepare, develop, and retain a strong educator workforce within a purposeful human capital system. The policies they have implemented demonstrate that the focus on educator effectiveness in the current U.S. education policy debate is appropriate: The right efforts to improve teacher effectiveness can lead to higher and more equitable student achievement. These efforts include: (1) a systemic approach; (2) strong recruitment and preparation; (3) attractive teaching conditions; (4) continuous support for learning; and (5) proactive leadership development. (Contains 9 endnotes.) [For related report, "Teacher and Leader Effectiveness in High-Performing Education Systems", see ED517673.]