11–20 of 93 posts
Finnish teachers make 100% of the national average for their level of education, compared to something like 60-65% for American teachers.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just happen to have watched the documentary mentioned in the article (Waiting For Superman) a couple of nights ago. It found that children from the middle class are just as effected. The issue boils down to the pervasiveness of bad teachers in the system, and an inability to get rid of those teachers and reward/promote good teachers.
Waiting For Superman is right-wing propaganda. Here's a really good NYRB article that explains exactly how distorted that movie is. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-ch... 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.
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.
I can't wait for Finns to pop in here to tell us about the dark sides of this success. There must be some. For one, there's a tax rate that would make most Americans, and even most Europeans, choke on their latte. 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…
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.
I can't wait for Finns to pop in here to tell us about the dark sides of this success. There must be some. For one, there's a tax rate that would make most Americans, and even most Europeans, choke on their latte. 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…
I can't wait for Finns to pop in here to tell us about the dark sides of this success. There must be some. For one, there's a tax rate that would make most Americans, and even most Europeans, choke on their latte. 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just happen to have watched the documentary mentioned in the article (Waiting For Superman) a couple of nights ago. It found that children from the middle class are just as effected. The issue boils down to the pervasiveness of bad teachers in the system, and an inability to get rid of those teachers and reward/promote good teachers.
Waiting For Superman is right-wing propaganda. Here's a really good NYRB article that explains exactly how distorted that movie is. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-ch... Also, Finnish schools are entirely unionized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_finland Ctrl-F "union"
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...
I can't wait for Finns to pop in here to tell us about the dark sides of this success. There must be some. For one, there's a tax rate that would make most Americans, and even most Europeans, choke on their latte. 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…
From the article it sounds like the Finns spend less and actually are "just doing it smarter."
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.
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.