Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
The answer to the question of how to improve US education is obvious to everybody... unfortunately the obvious answer always seems to differ depending on whom you're talking to. Teachers' unions will say that the answer is to pay more money to teachers. Anti-union activists will say that the answer is to get rid of teachers' unions. The left will say that we need more redistributive taxation, while the right will say that we need to implement market-based reforms to force schools to compete with one another. And racists will say that it's unavoidable that the US will do worse than European countries, because the US has so many black people.
Problems are relatively easy to solve when political agendas are involved, but once you get to the stage where everybody is simultaneously shouting "This new piece of evidence clearly shows that my political agenda was right all along" then problems have become completely insoluble.
Not this article though. It proposes pretty clear solutions, and no, they don't involve money or anything political you talk about. In fact quite opposite, it talks that both right and left in Finland agree that all kids should get the same quality of education. Did you read it anyway?
The problem is, even our own politicians aren't really able to comprehend the reasons. Most politicians aren't able to look at the Finnish system in a way that would question their own political views, so all the statements concerning what makes the Finnish system good are just the same old talking points, with cherry picked details from our system to fit them.
There was a big outrage in the press since in my country (Uruguay) we were at the bottom of the pack, after the governing party had made a lot of propaganda about they were doing things right this time around, doubled education spending and all that - they point out that Finland spends 6% of its PBI on education. Uruguay only recently reached that amount.
I expect that my country's politicians were amongst those that visited Finland (which, along with New Zealand, is one of our favourite references as a small and prosperous country), and that your assesment about their being unwilling to question their political views is probably right.
Here's a blog (in Spanish) that writes about what Uruguayans think the Finnish did right:
http://rigofa2011.blogdiario.com/1292241206/
"One of the highlights is that schools offer more than education. They are centers that provide food, medical and dental care, psychological care, among other services. And last but not least, they are free. "
"Asked the key to success, Tunturi did not hesitate to answer: "The educator is highly appreciated by society. Young people see it as a profession with a future. "Statistics show that 10% of the top high school students choose this route. Grünberg said this is a feature shared by other high quality educational systems, including South Korea, where teaching attracts 5% of the top high school graduates. "In other countries would be brain surgeons or lawyers, but they are teachers or teachers in Finland," said the rector."
I don't see how this author can fail to make any mention of the vastly different demographics in Finland as compared to the US. Certainly the US system has problems, but acting like the solutions are so easy doesn't help anyone.
Finland has one of the most even wealth distributions in the world. The education problem in the US, as far as I can tell, is mostly in the lower class. So the larger the middle class, the smaller the problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distributi...
Am I missing something?
They fail to mention unionization rates in Finnish schools, though.
Also, Finnish schools are entirely unionized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_finland Ctrl-F "union"
One of them suggested that tenure is very easy to get. In the article you posted, "tenure" appears exactly twice, neither time doing anything to dispel that notion. Furthermore, the byzantine and kafkaesque "due process" to eliminate bad teachers has been in the news quite a bit the last few years; I had heard of the NYC Rubber Room long before I saw Waiting For Superman.
Perhaps instead of downvoting my comment and appealing to a political agenda -- I have none, and ironically, most of my family are teachers -- it would be more instructive to discuss the actual issues at hand.
The kafkaesque dismissal process you allude to is the same in most union jobs. 1: written warning, 2: written warning with training, 3: teacher review board. That's it. The administrator knows this and the teachers know this so I don't see how it is kafkaesque in the slightest. The only way to shortcut that is if the teacher did something illegal like sleep with the students or possess child porn.
I also read the piece on the Rubber Room and the reason why the teachers were there was because the administrators were too lazy to actually start the dismissal process. From the same NYT article I read that some teachers should have been fired but hadn't and others shouldn't be there at all but butted heads with the administrators. They were put there because there was a procedure in place but no one wanted to follow it.
You work at a large enough company you'll get an employee manual on ways you can be fired and the procedure in place to do so. That is what wasn't happening in the Rubber Room case.
My personal views are closer to "Waiting for Superman" than Ravitch's, but I (like many ed-reformers) am a lefty. Views on education issues don't split cleanly along party lines.
My take on Ravitch's NYBooks piece is here (the tl;dr version is that her criticisms of the charter school movement as "an attack on public education" are way overblown): http://tumblr.2arrs2ells.com/post/1586044918/myth-of-charter...
Maybe it's more controlled in Finland who can end up as a full-time teacher. Teaching is still pretty popular career choice (esp. for women) and not everybody who wants to be a teacher gets into university to study for a degree. What is the situation in US, is it popular choice anymore?
"You can't have good schools without good teachers"
So you're looking at 200-300 school districts in Finland and 12,000-15,000 in the US. Standards for everything from bussing to curriculum vary dramatically by state or even by district.
I'd attribute the variation in quality to scale, too much money and poor governance in the US.
As others have mentioned, that is seen as a solution (and one that the US is acting on), however MANY disagree heavily that that is the core issue, as do I. I hope no one is offended by this comparison, but I believe it can be compared to the issue with the massive amount of people in prison in US problem -- can there really be that many bad people, or is the issue something else? I'm 100% convinced it's something else, specifically that (in a lot of cases) the system itself causes the behaviors by motivating/incentivizing it.
Mid-2000s 2000 Mid-1990s 1990 Mid-1980s Mid-1970s
0.269 0.261 0.228 n/a 0.207 0.235For a more comprehensive data set see: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/data-access/key-figures/inequal...
If you happen to have access to an even more comprehensive data set, please share. I'm mainly interest on the Gini coefficient overtime and its relation with GDP or GDP per capita to answer questions like: Did Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Norway, etc developed maintaining a low income equality?, Which country has significantly lowered its income equality over the last 50 or so years? Are they highly developed now?, Has there been highly unequal countries that were able to successfully reduce and become developed?
http://www.stat.fi/til/tjt/2009/tjt_2009_2011-05-20_tau_002_...
Statistics Finland provide data about income distribution, but not much about wealth.
The bit about teachers having time to prepare their lessons is one of the key observations of east Asian schools too.
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Gap-Schools-Japanese-Educatio...
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html
Schools in east Asia have similar staffing ratios (teachers per enrolled pupil) to schools in the United States, but they have MUCH larger class sizes, with teachers having work periods during the day when they review and prepare lessons with colleagues. That makes the teachers more effective, per teacher, and helps the teachers cope with the larger class sizes, because they teach more engaging lessons. When I lived in Taiwan a decade ago, I had a chance to see in a bookstore some Chinese-language books used by teachers to prepare mathematics lessons. They are unlike ANYTHING available in English, much richer in mathematical content and much more filled with sound, practice-based pedagogical tips than comparable books published in the United States.
Because American schools don't try very hard to engage in best practice in teacher coordination for good lesson preparation, and because many United States school textbooks, especially in mathematics, are just plain lousy, I'm able to make a living as a teacher of supplemental mathematics lessons for children who are already attending their free public schools during other days of the week. In this regard, I'd be happy if the system here changed in a way that put me out of my current job.
Another key fact from farther along in the submitted article: "Applicants began flooding teaching programs, not because the salaries were so high but because autonomy and respect made the job attractive." That explains exactly why I teach in the private sector rather than in the government-operated schools of the United States, which hobble the best teachers and coddle the worst in their employ.
Think about what that means. (Hint: It's not a money issue)
Duff, please spell it out for us? What are you implying the problem is?
After edit: The Americorps website is a mess, so I'm still looking around for information about where Americorps members might work as teachers.
As to the other, more experienced teachers, they teach in various parts of Georgia. Rural districts in both north and middle GA, as well as the Atlanta area (in a variety of school types: a few in financially well off districts; others in financially poorer districts).
Subjects taught:
- Math by most of the Atlanta area teachers
- The rural teachers are a combination of foreign languages and english and a couple math/science teachers
Those that select a teaching curriculum in the university spend 1-2 years interning in schools during their studies. Most people end up taking up teaching curricula just because it is a sure way of getting employment especially if one is studying a field in which employment is scarce outside of academia, say, philosophy.
I myself am studying computer science and I plan to enroll in a teaching curriculum should life in academia turn out to be boring, mostly because a) teaching is fun b) it pays relatively well c) a three month paid vacation from June to the end of August is a plus and d) it is a respected profession.
Just a random observation, but having philosophers with an educational background teaching kindergarten is probably not such a bad thing.
That's partially because many parents see school as free childcare and don't understand the value of education themselves. This in turn is because parents are (in general) spending more time away from their children trying to "make ends meet" which itself has to do with consumer culture and living beyond means. It's a complex problem.
In the US, the decades of weak pay, support and heavy criticism almost seem like a high point compared to the demonization of more recent years.
It seems to me that those that become teachers in Finland have chosen the career fairly early on. It's a vocational thing. Money doesn't influence the decision, but of course there is the financial baseline that teaching is a stable job that offers an extraordinarily long summer vacation (something like 11 weeks, fully paid).
Wow -- that alone could cause a number of the effects we're talking about. Anyone who wants to go to college can, versus in the US, there are a number of children who know (or pessimistically assume) that college is just not in the cards for them.
Not saying we should adopt that single tenet. Just that it has surprisingly strong ripples throughout the whole system that should not be underestimated.
The 2nd interesting point I took away is the ability grouping. Not grouping by ability works for young children, say K-6. But once older, the gap is too much for a unified curriculum. Taking this concept further out, Americans need more vocational high schools, like Finland. College is overvalued in this country, and a large segment of high school students are being misled by the college myth.
Why do you think bad teachers would work their way out of the system due to competition? Ontario pays teachers generously and as a result has a glut of teachers (widespread unemployment amongst new teachers, people going abroad, certainly many of these people would be good teachers). There's no "competition" because the challenge is to get on the supply list, and then get hired into the unionized workplace. Once you're there, don't worry about getting fired. The main struggle is getting in, not avoiding getting out. High pay does necessarily lead to the sort of competition that I think you have in mind.
Not to go pop commentary on you, but Malcom Gladwell once wrote a piece on this very thing. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_...;
Average US salary $40,711.61:
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html
Average US salary for those with any sort of Masters $53,000:
http://www.salary.com/learning/layouthtmls/leal_display_noca...
Average salaries by type of teacher for their 9 out of 12 months of work:
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2010/12/pisa_scores_sho...
'''
* Asian Americans outscored every Asian country, and lost out only to the city of Shanghai, China’s financial capital.
* White Americans students outperformed the national average in every one of the 37 historically white countries tested, except Finland (which is, perhaps not coincidentally, an immigration restrictionist nation where whites make up about 99 percent of the population).
* Hispanic Americans beat all eight Latin American countries.
* African Americans would likely have outscored any sub-Saharan country, if any had bothered to compete.
'''
scuze me, I couldn't figure out how to italicise something when it contained asterisky bullet points.
But there's no "wow" about it. If America has the pedigree amongst whites, asians, africans, and hispanics, it was simply due to the horrible trials associated with distant migration. Simple Darwinian stuff really.
Finn 93.4%
Swede 5.6%
Russian 0.5%
Estonian 0.3%
Roma (Gypsy) 0.1%
Sami 0.1% (2006)
I imagine this would be very frustrating for a child who is considered "clever". By lumping everyone together in the same classroom, the kids who are ahead of the others could quickly grow bored and lose interest. I live in America, and I know that I was bored as hell until 6th grade, where classes started to be filtered based on abilities. While this article focuses on standardized test scores for all students, I would be interested to see data on "gifted" education in Finland using this one-size fits all approach.
The writing is regular, and vocabulary very simple - think "tear sacs" instead of whatever Latin / Greek / German / French derived term you use in English.
I like their right-wing teaching system, which seems to follow the stuff that's got some empirical backing (DI, mastery learning, no retention, etc), but there are other factors.
I like their right-wing teaching system
Doesn't make sense to try to find a one size fits all solution for a problem with a multitude of unique aspects: culture, race, language, income, etc.
In Finland on the other hand it does, because they are all the same culturally, racially, economically and speak the same language.
I'm not sure that's bad, but this article seems to neglect to mention that nothing comes for free. This isn't just "doing it smarter", it's also investing a massive chunk of money.
Additionally, I honestly doubt it's sustainable. The example of the Kosovar kid with a language delay is telling: this will only work if there's only a few such kids in the school at once. With immigration to Finland strongly increasing over the past 5 years, the problem may at some point be more difficult to tackle the "traditional way" when, at least in certain cities and suburbs, half the classroom has trouble with the language. I don't think there's an easy solution to this.
Doesn't the article say: "Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States"?
And Finland's per-capita GDP is practically the same as that of the US.
Read the paragraph in the article that starts with "it's almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless."
Many American students face huge barriers to learning that originate outside of school. They are hungry, chronically ill, don't have a home, don't have a quiet space to study, don't have supportive parents, etc. No amount of school reform will fix those problems.
Check out season 4 of The Wire for a very grim account of a school in a very poor area.
"Burns has said that he stumbled into teaching with little preparation because of the intense demand for teachers in inner-city schools.[2] Burns taught seventh grade. Psychologically, he compared the experience of teaching to the Vietnam War.[2] He found the experience profoundly challenging because of the emotional damage that the vast majority of his students had already experienced before reaching the classroom. He saw his primary role as instilling caring behavior in his pupils.[2] He felt his major impact was in giving the children an example of an "adult who's consistent, who's always there, who always comes through with what he said, then that's a new world for them."[2]"
For example, depending on which figures for education spending you use, it might include the free school lunch program, which is really more a kind of anti-poverty program that happens to be distributed via the schools. In addition, beefed up school security, anti-gang programs, and counseling programs are the school acting as policeman and social worker more than as educator. So it could be (but I can't say for sure) that Finland's lower per-student education budget still includes more actual spending on education, if other parts of the government take care of the other issues better.
Suppose that we found out that if immigration in US were heavily curtailed, then some social indicators such as "% of population with low income" or "average grades in standardized tests" would improve and then US would compare more favourably in relation to (say) Finland. That's not to say that immigration is a bad thing! I, for one, think that US is helping more people than Finland, even if reluctantly.
I study at Aalto university, my mom is a teacher and I have thought this stuff a lot.
Dark side of success... What success? Given six million people, who all are smart as hell when 15 year olds, you could assume that there would be at least one university in Finland that would be in the group of 30 best universities in the world. Well, our best is Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto at rank 151. Switzerland has Universite de geneve at 33 while Sweden has Karolinska Institut at 51 http://www.4icu.org/top200/
I have heard that Finland has quite cheap engineers when compared internationally, but you can hardly speak of very high class upper education.
Teaching in Finland is far from perfect. I think these scores have a lot to do with language. As Finnish is written phonetically, average child knows how to read and write after first grade. It would be more fair to compare Finnish 13 year old with English speaking 15 year old.
This isn't a real _problem_ though, just something that could be better and I personally found annoying.