

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - PaulMcCartney
http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

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aik
From the article:

Key point:

"The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values
equality more than excellence.... The problem facing education in America
isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of
society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform
addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more
competitive abroad."

Evidence:

"Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike
Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than
Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational
policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a
country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup."

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hugh4life
"Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike
Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than
Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational
policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a
country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup."

The US is doing much better than Norway... and Sweden. The idea that Sweden
doesn't value equality is just absurd.

[http://www.vdare.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/fullsize...](http://www.vdare.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/fullsize/images/James_Fulford/121910_ss001c.png)

~~~
aik
I don't think they mean that Sweden/Norway don't value equality, but that
there seems to be more focus on other aspects that are focused on in the US
(e.g. competition, mix of private/public schools, options of cheap/expensive
schools, possibly not as high teacher standards, etc.). It doesn't have to be
a zero-sum game.

I think there's also a difference between what equality is focused on. Sweden
pushes equality in some ways probably more than any other country (e.g. gender
equality), but that doesn't necessarily mean there is as much focus in other
areas (e.g. socio-economic equality -- though I don't know if that's a good
example or not).

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foidman
I love Finland but they don't have the diversity problems the US has. If you
go to a non diverse school in Minneasota for example, it will be similar to a
Finnish school.

~~~
tthomas48
No. It wouldn't. The kids would be smart and might be able to overcome the
adversity of going to an "excellent" school. But that's not the same thing at
all.

"Excellent" US schools have excelled at cheating and looking busy. Most
"excellect" schools have amounts of homework that are nearly impossible to
finish in an evening. Why do they do that? Because the main window into school
that parents have is homework. Ratchet up the homework and you make your
school seem "excellent".

My daughter is going to a dual-language public school and the way they teach
involves constant collaboration, language, math, and art. The school is 67%
economically disadvantaged and is doing fantastically on standardized tests.

Diversity is not the problem. The market is. It's providing the most
attractive education. It provides an education with "excellence" that confers
status upon the recipient.

But that should not be confused with the education that educates the best and
has the most benefit to society.

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tkahn6
7 months ago. 192 comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3416777>

