The Internal and External Mechanisms of theTop-tier Teacher Honour System: Implications from the Case of National Teacher of the Year in the U.S.

The American "National Teacher of the Year" (NTOY) program is a representative teacher honour system in Western countries. It is a result of struggling between different groups under the domestic and international contexts. The success of the NTOY program is facilitated by both internal and external factors. In terms of the internal factors, the following mechanisms serve as the base of a good selection condition: the principle of equal selection, multiple evaluation criteria, a professional review panel and a rigorous review process. As for the external relations, NTOY has a unique and close relationship with domestic political field, local communities, schools and international education communities. The American experiences offer valuable implications for the reform of national teacher honour system in China: from an internal point of view, a series of fair and standardized selection mechanisms should be established; from an external perspective, cross-field and transnational communication and cooperation are necessary; in addition, the reform and innovation should be guided by the principle of localization.