
What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - kayoone
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
======
brianchu
It's interesting that the PISA scores are always used to declare that the
school system of X is vastly superior to Y, (usually some other country in
comparison to America), a conclusion that ignores the fact that test scores
are affected by variables other than the educational system of a country.

If you correct for ethnic background, America holds up very well. Asian-
Americans (including Asian-Americans from developing nations like Vietnam and
Cambodia) score as high as Asians in the wealthy countries of Japan, South
Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. European-descended Americans score in the
upper third of the pack when compared to other White Europeans (ahead of
Australia, Denmark, France, and the EU average, below Finland, Switzerland,
Canada, Germany) [1]. In this comparison, Finland does stand above the rest,
admittedly. But what drags down our scores? Disadvantaged ethnic minorities.
The same applies to European countries: "In almost all European countries,
immigrants from third world countries score lower than native born kids."

Even immigrants to Finland score poorly compared to native Finns; it's just
that only 4% of Finns are immigrants. In fact, the gap between immigrant and
native PISA scores is _greater_ in Finland than the USA.

With all the institutional and socioeconomic baggage that comes with being
Hispanic or black in America, you cannot seriously compare the raw PISA scores
of a nation of immigrants that is 13% black and 16% Hispanic (America) with a
nation that is by and large culturally and ethnically homogenous (Finland),
and use that to draw meaningful conclusions about the educational system.

[1] [http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-
abou...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-
scores-usa.html)

EDIT (reply to below): No, because even immigrants/minorities in Finland score
lower than average; the gap between immigrants to Finland and native Finns is
even greater than the gap between immigrants to America and native Finns.
Furthermore it is very hard to make a comparison because it's pretty easy to
have "equity" when your entire society is largely ethnically/culturally
homogenous, and when you only have to scale that equity across a very small
population.

~~~
nhaehnle
This just underscores the headline statement of the article though, wouldn't
you say? If e.g. US education policy were strongly focused on equity, chances
are that those immigrants _wouldn't_ score lower than the average. And since
powerful groups would still want their children to score well, chances are
that the system would change in a way that _pulls everybody up_ rather than
pushing anybody down.

From the other perspective, it seems perfectly possible to have a culturally
and ethnically homogenous country with high inequality (along class lines
rather than racial lines) and hence worse education results.

~~~
netcan
Ethnic issues aside, I think the OP's most important point is that schools are
not the only thing that goes into education. Their family, community and
friends might even be more important. Imagine you took a school performing in
the top 5% academically and swap the students with a school performing in the
bottom 5%. Which do you think will perform better?

Universities ares someplace where this is widely accepted. Go to a good Uni
because that's where the good students are. It probably works for primary
schools too.

------
jared314
I think the article misses some of the scaling issues. Finland has, I think,
1.5 million school age children, while the US has ~84 million to educate.

I'm far more interested in the classroom "flipping" model[0] coming out of
Colorado. It combines the scaling advantages of online video lectures with
supervised group practice. I don't think it has been fully studied yet, but it
sounds very interesting.

[0] [http://www.npr.org/2012/12/07/166748835/more-teachers-
flippi...](http://www.npr.org/2012/12/07/166748835/more-teachers-flipping-the-
school-day-upside-down)

~~~
adamt
But doesn't schooling pretty much scale horizontally? Is schooling 84M really
any more complex then schooling 1.5M?

If anything, I'd suggest there is a fairly large fixed overhead for a country
to set up a school system (teacher training, set curriculum, exam structure
etc) and beyond that it becomes fairly cookie-cutter to scale out each school.

~~~
penny500
It doesn't work that way. Students in South Los Angeles, for instance, need a
different curriculum than students in wealthy Cambridge. Students at the
former still struggle with English, while the latter are scions of Harvard and
MIT.

~~~
flexie
I bet students in Finland start off with a lower English level than students
in South Los Angeles.

~~~
argonaut
I bet students in South Los Angeles start off with a lower Finnish level than
students in Finland.

~~~
flexie
Well, that's an easy bet to settle. 97 percent of Finns have either Finnish,
Swedish, Russian or Estonian as native language and only 0.26 percent of Finns
are native English speakers.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Finland>

~~~
argonaut
It's as easy to settle as your bet. That was the point I was demonstrating
with my sarcasm.

~~~
flexie
Sorry. Got lost on me :-)

------
rlpb
"Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children
in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children
receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based
on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of
Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a
range of different schools."

Children aren't being taught to pass tests. They're being educated. Teaching
quality is maintained using sampling. Could this be the key?

~~~
wildgift
"Teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests
they create themselves."

So, they do testing. They probably test more often than standardized testing.

~~~
rlpb
Presumably that testing is catered to the specific children the teachers are
teaching, rather than testing that is catered to some kind of national
standardized performance metric.

------
carlob
A very interesting read on the subject of equality and competition in
education is Lorenzo Milani students' book 'Lettera a una professoressa'
(Letter to a Teacher) [1].

Milani was a catholic priest that was deemed a bit too radical by the church
establishment and was sent in a tiny rural community as a teacher so that he
would stay away from the workers in large cities. There he developed a full
time school, where older students would teach the younger and there was no
notion of marks, testing or even holiday.

Learning was a collective experience that relied on critical thinking and
research rather than rote learning. The book is also seminal (at least in
Italy) since it uses hard numbers to show the social inequality of the school
system. The statistical and economical analysis was performed by his students
as a research project.

[1] <http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf>

~~~
keithpeter
_"The statistical and economical analysis was performed by his students as a
research project."_

That is the way to do it, thanks for this reference. Paulo Freire has had a
similar influence in _adult_ teaching. One quick quote from the PDF...

" _I'd have you paid by piecework. So much for each child who learns one
subject. Or,even better, a fine for each child who does not learn a subject.
Then your eyes would always be on Gianni.

You would search out in his inattentive stare the intelligence that God has
put in him, as in all children. You would fight for the child who needs you
most, neglecting the gifted one, as they do in any family. You would wake up
at night thinking about him and would try to invent new ways to teach him -
ways that would fit his needs. You would go to fetch him from home if he did
not show up for class._"

Er - no, I'd just go and find another job, subject to a definition of what
'learn a subject' means! I'll print and read the _whole_ PDF carefully but
this is _exactly_ the opposite of what the Finnish system does.

~~~
carlob
I think this quote is more of an hyperbole, however the principle of the quote
would be: spend most of your energies on the most difficult students, not on
the gifted ones; probably the most gifted student will find something to
satiate their interests anyway and their families are already providing them
tangentially with learning material.

An educator I know likes to say that's not the really worst students you
should spend your energies on, but the ones just a little better, that's where
the best return on investment is, according to him.

------
smutticus
Can we talk about poverty? In many communities in America schools are the only
places students can get something to eat. We know that academic performance
correlates closely with the economic conditions parents. So why don't we talk
about it more?

Schools are in many ways just reflections of a society and its values. Schools
don't exist in a vacuum, so comparing American schools to Finnish schools can
not be done as an apples to apples comparison.

~~~
penny500
"Can we talk about poverty? In many communities in America schools are the
only places students can get something to eat."

I've worked with inner city youths, and that is completely false. If that were
true, we'd expect a very skinny poor population. Instead, a large percentage
of America's poor are overweight.

~~~
DividesByZero
A large percentage of the poor are overweight or obese because of the low
nutritional value of cheap, readymade food.

~~~
wildgift
I don't think that's the cause. I think that's just some middle class bias in
the debate.

I think the real reason is that food generally costs a lot less than it used
to cost, relative to housing and other expenses.

Poor people often know how to cook, out of necessity, and make the food taste
better by retaining more of the fat, adding carbs like rice, and plenty of
meat.

Food is sustenance, culture, entertainment, and reward all in one experience.
And the price is relatively low. If you have $10, you can dine very well if
you can cook.

------
rtpg
A point that seems to come out of this:

> Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care,
> psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.

Schools should be more about this. Creating a good environment for kids,
especially those from poorer backgrounds. We somehow delude ourselves into
thinking that schools are about test scores, but it's about forming children
into decent human beings.

~~~
efdee
> but it's about forming children into decent human beings.

This used to be the parents' job.

------
Svip
I know I might be a bit pedantic, but Finland is not part of Scandinavia; only
Sweden, Denmark and Norway are. Finland is part of the Nordic countries, along
with Scandinavia and Iceland.

This _tiny_ bit of research makes me concerned about the rest of the article's
content. And as jared314 correctly points out; things are different in Finland
compared to the United States. Moreover; remember, what is good for Finland,
may not be good for Colorado. Hell, what is good for Colorado may not be good
for Maine. Or Finland versus Denmark, for that matter.

Each country and/or state is different, and should - appropriately - be
treated that way. Don't be too swayed by success, also learn from failure.

~~~
beloch
I'm not sure what you're saying... There's no point in making comparisons
because the U.S. and Finland are different?

Canada is much closer to Finland in PISA rankings than the U.S., but probably
has more in common with the U.S. in most respects than Finland. Of course,
Canada is not Finland or the U.S., and what is good for Canada may not be good
for the U.S. ...

Seriously, look no further than the text-book industry in the U.S. It's a
friggin' mess. If I were designing a curriculum in Canada, my #1 criteria for
choosing a text-book would be "must not be used in Texas or California".

~~~
Svip
Not _that_ bold. We should not ignore what others are doing, but we should not
think that because someone else is doing well, a carbon copy of their solution
will fit here. I am just saying that things are never simple.

------
azov
The article makes it sound as if public vs private is the only way in which
schools differ. Even if all schools are public, some of them are good while
others are bad, and you still have to somehow select students who get to
attend good ones.

Soviet Union had a similar system, and selection was driven by a combination
of merit exams, social status/personal connections, and corruption. This
actually worked reasonably well. But "equal access for everyone" was more of a
propaganda bs then reality, and I doubt it is much different in Finland.

~~~
paganel
> Soviet Union had a similar system, and selection was driven by a combination
> of merit exams, social status/personal connections, and corruption

I gather that you've also attended one of these schools :) Anyway, I also come
from that part of the world and I remember how my parents had to pull a lot of
strings to enroll me in a better school compared to the one I had been
automatically assigned to.

------
recori
What I do like in the Finnish schoolsystem is that it gives an equal chance
for everyone from every background to aim for their individual dreams and
goals. It does not rank people based on their welfare, but the equality in the
schoolsystem gives every single child an equal chance to be whatever they
want. You are not judged on your social status and income, but how hard you
work for your grades and goals. Children and teenagers are not restricted when
it comes to applying to schools and universities. You can even apply to the
top universities of Finland if you have studied hard and have good grades.
Tuition fees? Nope. And how's your income? - The schools don't care as long as
you've proven that you're hardworking or talented. System takes care of the
funding, students can focus on the studying.

Maybe in some countries, changing to this kind of system might be considered
just an idealistic nonsense, but I believe that's what has made the Finnish
schoolsystem as strong as it is - equal chance for everyone to be whatever
they want to be and work hard for.

------
wildgift
My sister is a teacher in elementary school, in a somewhat diverse school
community, and achieves high scores by focusing on equity and a community
outreach to get parents involved in the classroom.

------
pgsandstrom
The finnish model sounds very much like the swedish model, and Sweden is
constantly slipping in the PISA studies. 2009 we were below Norway, and even
behind United States in reading and mathematics.

------
droithomme
The author of this article would have his readers believe that out of all the
things about Finland which make sense regarding their better achievement, the
only element that really matters is that Finland doesn't have private schools.

Stated another way, the only thing that is causing public schools to fail in
the US is the existence of private schools.

Eliminate private schools and suddenly the US will have achievement on par
with Finland, if we are to believe this analysis.

Is it really that simple?

~~~
penny500
America's top schools are privately-run (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Andover,
Exeter, etc). If we eliminated private schools, does the author expect better
test scores?

~~~
arethuza
The use of "school" here is about primary and secondary education, not
University/College level tertiary education.

~~~
penny500
So? My point still stands. The best secondary schools, like Andover, Exeter,
Harvard-Westlake, St. Paul's, Horace Mann, to name a few, are privately-run.

~~~
arethuza
I wasn't disagreeing with your point, merely pointing out that in this context
those were poor examples.

------
mcpie
Finland has a very quirky school system, it's nigh impossible to apply in
other countries. It's also a matter of a concerted PR effort - the paper
reality often looks better than what actually happens in schools. While it's
very interesting and certainly still a role model, many educational
professionals are slowly dropping the 'Be Finland' chorus and are starting to
look elsewhere.

New Zealand seems to be the new hype.

------
graycat
Take some people and 'partition' them, that is, for some positive integer n,
have n boxes and put each person in some one of the n boxes. Each box is a
'partition'. Have no empty boxes.

Okay, pick a measure. Might pick accuracy with a bow and arrow, skill at
adding a column of numbers, ability to memorize a passage of music, distance
on a broad jump -- you get it, essentially anything.

Now apply the measure to each of the people, and for each partition get an
average for the measures of the people in that partition.

Now rank the partitions on the averages. Typically will have no ties -- assume
no ties. So, there is no ambiguity in the ranking.

Note: Likely picking a different measure will result in a different ranking.

Now pick one more box, A, and move some people from the partitions into box A
from some of the other boxes, and get the score of the people in box A.

So, here we have an experiment with any people with any partitions with any
measure and have said nothing, zip, zilch, zero, about ethnicity, race,
income, parent's education, school systems, teachers unions, school budgets,
etc.

Claim: Essentially always, the score of box A will be significantly lower than
the score of the best partition and significantly higher than the score of the
worst partition. That is, the score of box A will be, in the word of the OP,
'middling'.

So, just this little thought experiment is enough to explain the fact that the
US is not either the best or the worst in the world on the PISA tests.

But, if in each partition the people are homogeneous, then typically the
result will be the same except the difference between partition at the top of
the ranking and the bottom of the ranking will be larger. Net, both the top
and the bottom of the rankings will have homogeneous populations, and the
diverse partition A will be middling.

For more, if want to compare the school, home life, etc. of Finland what those
aspects of the US, then compare PISA scores of students in Finland, native to
Finland, with the PISA scores of US students of recent, native Finnish
descent.

Of course, there was

"McKinsey's report, The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's
Schools"

of 2009. The URLs of the PDFs are no longer live.

There in the "supporting materials" on page 24 is a bar graph of

"PISA Science Literacy Scale for 15-year-old students, 2006"

with

    
    
         Finland      563
         Hong Kong    542
         Canada       534
         Japan        531
         Australia    527
         US whites    523
         ...
         US average   489
         ...
         Greece       473
         Israel       454
         US Latinos   439
    

Now, how can Israel be so low?

Exercise for the reader!

