The education miracle in Finland

[Anonymous]

The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

[Anonymous]

You could say that about McLean.

Finland has very little diversity. It is easy to have equality when everyone is the same.

[Anonymous]

Finland also doesn't start formal education until age 6 or 7. No academics in the early years - those are all about play and creativity and child development. No reading or math or lessons or academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could say that about McLean.

Finland has very little diversity. It is easy to have equality when everyone is the same.

Norway also has very little diversity, but can't hold a candle to Finland's education achievements. (it's in the article)

[Anonymous]

Here are an article about the latest PISA results which rank the education attainment of kids in different countries:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/03/world/asia/pisa-education-study/index.html

Finland has fallen a bit.

[Anonymous]

must be that dang equality thing.

[Anonymous]

I am from Europe (although not from Finland), and I did experienced some of the things in the article. in my country school is public and very good (there are some private schools where lazy kids from well off families could get a piece of paper of a diploma without studying), including at the university level (my great law school was $100 a year in tuition). we learned to read and write at 6 yr in first grade, before there was only play. also, we did not have standardized test, we were evaluated by the teacher during the year, and took exams at the end of each cycle (elementary, middle school, high school). there was no social promotion, kids could fail and had to repeat the year. teachers had no evaluations, and there was no school rankings or kids rankings inside school, so there was no competitions among kids ( I was amazed when I came to the US for and LLM and students were ranked in the first 5%, 10% and so on, nothing like that happened in my European law school). However, I am not sure some things that work in Finland can work here. the article talks about percentage of foreign born students, but often problem students are born in the US. kids in ward 8 are most likely born in the US, and I am not sure Finland has social situation similar to the one in the US. in my country we did not have situations of widespread economic and social problems like in the US. making sure that teachers are well qualified is really important (and I understand that in DC until recently there were teachers who did not have basic qualifications), but I doubt Finland has areas with tens of thousands of superpoor people from broken families where kids have kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that in DC until recently there were teachers who did not have basic qualifications

Actually, now there are teachers who haven't had teacher training and don't have a license to teach, they're called Teach for America.

[Anonymous]

This discussion pops up often. Here is another thread about Finland from last yr:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/295167.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

What they value is real challenge and real learning over real BS. Try to go there with the "equality" argument as framed by DCPS and you wouldn't last 3 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finland also doesn't start formal education until age 6 or 7. No academics in the early years - those are all about play and creativity and child development. No reading or math or lessons or academics.

That's misleading information. It's correct to say that mandatory education doesn't start until then, but Finns have access to robust early childhood education programs prior to then - and the overwhelming majority of Finnish families take advantage of that.

[Anonymous]

Robust?

[Anonymous]

Finland fell hard in the latest rankings. Here is a more recent article from the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21591195-fall-former-nordic-education-star-latest-pisa-tests-focusing-interest

Finn-ished

The fall of a former Nordic education star in the latest PISA tests is focusing interest on the tougher Asian model instead
Dec 7th 2013 | From the print edition


WHEN the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests to focus on maths results were published a decade ago, Finland’s blue-cross flag fluttered near the top of the rankings. Its pupils excelled at numeracy, and topped the table in science and reading. Education reformers found the prospect of non-selective, high-achieving and low-stress education bewitching.

Every three years since then, 15-year-olds have sat PISA tests in maths, reading and science. In 2012 fully 500,000 heads were bent over desks for the exam in 65 countries or cities. The results, published on December 3rd, doled out a large helping of humble pie to Europe’s former champion. Finland has fallen by 22 points on its 2009 result, with smaller falls (12 points and 9) in reading and science. “The golden days are over,” lamented the Finnbay news website.

None of this should have come as a surprise. Finland’s maths performance has been tailing off since 2006. But it is worsening faster than in other countries with falling scores such as Canada and Denmark. The Asian high-fliers (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore) have consolidated their position at the top. Much soul-searching is under way in Helsinki.

[Anonymous]

A. Finland is a Nordic country and not a Scandinavian country. OP, if you don't know the difference then this thread is useless.

B. This article is from 2011 and does not align with more recent work like the book The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got There.

C. Individual income tax rates are around 50% or more.

D. If you spent more than three days (?) in Finland, you would know that they are extremely concerned about the survival of Suomi (if you don't know what that is, then don't post about Finland) in light of the need to expand the population base. You might be surprised where they go for models of dual-language immersion...hint...it's not Quebec.

Are there lessons to be learned from Finland? Possibly. But don't "go there" unless you've actually been there.

[Anonymous]

Even with their "fall" in the PISAs, the Finns are still far ahead of the US.