We are pleased to share with you PREAL Working Paper No. 56, “A comparative study of teacher preparation and qualifications in six nations” by Richard M. Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania. This study compares training standards, selectivity, qualifications and teaching assignments of primary and secondary teachers in the United States, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Japan, in an effort to determine how the United States might raise the quality of its teachers. It finds that teacher training is much more decentralized and fragmented in the United States, and U.S. teacher training programs are much less selective than in the other countries. It also found that U.S. teachers were much more likely to be teaching in fields for which they did not have specific training.