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Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#81

Post by aik »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #6
Benjo wrote: post #5

It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. 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…

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.

> "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."

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.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#82

Post by godarderik »

"All children—clever or less so—were to be taught in the same classrooms, with lots of special teacher help available to make sure no child really would be left behind."

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.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#83

Post by bugsy »

aik wrote: post #81
shaggyfrog wrote: post #6

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.

> "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." 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 massi…

I agree with you that "bad teachers" is not the core or only issue. A more serious issue, as an example, is that good teachers are actively driven away by petty bureaucrats. Those that remain are severely constrained in the good they can do. With the advent of endemic standardized testing tied into bonuses and tenure, classes have devolved into regurgitate the answer mode. That issue, of really excellent teaching being punished or prohibited, is only one of many many problems in the system. Easy fixes don't work because there is not just one thing that is the problem. There are many things and the things vary somewhat state by state and district by district within a state.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#84

Post by teyc »

hugh3 wrote: post #60
billswift wrote: post #33

Because they are full of Finns. http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2010/12/pisa_scores_sho...

Wow, if those numbers are true then it sure falls into the "uncomfortable truths" category: ''' * 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…

The article specifically mentions how immigrants are helped in Finland.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#85

Post by bugsy »

chrismealy wrote: post #4

Finnish teachers make 100% of the national average for their level of education, compared to something like 60-65% for American teachers.

Do you have a source for your claim that US teachers make 60% of the national average for someone with a masters in education? (A degree which doesn't qualify one to do anything but teach.)

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://resource.educationamerica.net/salaries.html/

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#86

Post by yardie »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #12
lbarrow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

I don't want to get into the "right-wing" side of things, as that's overly political. Let's focus on the assertions of the documentary instead. 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…

W4S is an extremely insidious hitpiece on teachers and unions and was universally criticized by most teachers. Like any documentary with an agenda it extrapolates a few datapoints and says, "look, here is your problem, just get rid of items 1, 2, 3 and everything will work".

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.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#87

Post by tsotha »

teyc wrote: post #84
hugh3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if those numbers are true then it sure falls into the "uncomfortable truths" category: ''' * 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…

The article specifically mentions how immigrants are helped in Finland.

Yes, but there aren't enough of them to affect the statistics. Here's the ethnic breakdown of Finland as of 2006:

  Finn 93.4%
  Swede 5.6%
  Russian 0.5%
  Estonian 0.3%
  Roma (Gypsy) 0.1%
  Sami 0.1% (2006)
Finns and Swedes make up 99% of the population. The first group that historically has trouble in school, the Roma, makes up a whopping 0.1% of the population. If schools can work anywhere, it's Finland.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#88

Post by CaptainZapp »

wisty wrote: post #65

Another article ( http://finnish-and-pisa.blogspot.com/ , submitted - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2918684 ) suggests Finish-Ugric languages give Finnish and Estonian schools an edge in PISA results (and education in general). 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 teachi…

  I like their right-wing teaching system
Sorry, but what has the Finnish teaching system to do with right-wing?

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#89

Post by adrianN »

teyc wrote: post #84
hugh3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if those numbers are true then it sure falls into the "uncomfortable truths" category: ''' * 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…

The article specifically mentions how immigrants are helped in Finland.

It's much harder to specifically help immigrants if they make up 80% of the class, like in the schools in inner Berlin.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#90

Post by stdbrouw »

eru wrote: post #68
pasiaj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are spot on about the cargo cultism. Ever since the first great PISA-scores, we've been getting hoards of visitors from all over the world, trying to understand what makes our system good. 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 con…

Perhaps it would be more instructive to look at how countries improved (or failed to improve) their PISA score than at how good countries do it?

Or, as the story suggests, think about why the PISA scores are so important to us when there are many other ways to "grade" educational systems.
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