Why do Finland's schools get the best results? (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Tom Burridge
BBC World News America, Helsinki


Last year more than 100 foreign delegations and governments visited Helsinki, hoping to learn the secret of their schools' success.

In 2006, Finland's pupils scored the highest average results in science and reading in the whole of the developed world. In the OECD's exams for 15 year-olds, known as PISA, they also came second in maths, beaten only by teenagers in South Korea.
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A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.
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Finnish parents obviously claim some credit for the impressive school results. There is a culture of reading with the kids at home and families have regular contact with their children's teachers.

Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland. Teachers are highly valued and teaching standards are high.
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Children in Finland only start main school at age seven. The idea is that before then they learn best when they're playing and by the time they finally get to school they are keen to start learning.
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well worth a read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8601207.stm




But there are ALL KINDS of reasons we can't do the same here!

(Most of those reasons involve bribes, payoffs and kickbacks.)

[jody]

1. IMO the students & their families are the biggest reason, they value education and want to learn. nt

[poverlay]

2. Great ideas, one and all. We should be ashamed of ourselves...n/t

[virgogal]

3. Starting children at 7 is a great idea,but would be squashed here,especially

in major cities

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Why do you say that?

We are promoting a bill here to lower the compulsory attendance age from 7 to 5 in our urban districts.

[virgogal]

15. Why did I say what? You seem to be confirming my point about

early education being desired in urban areas. Boston had Head Start since the sixties.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. IIRC, Finland also has a higher percentage of union teachers than we do

[alstephenson]

6. I didn't see that mentioned in the article.

What IS the percentage of union teachers in Finland? And what is the percentage in the U.S.? I will use the google, but thought you might know off hand.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. 95%

http://www.oaj.fi/portal/page?_pageid=515,452376&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

Don't know what it is in the US but I doubt it is 95%.

[alstephenson]

14. Thanks.

[DBoon]

12. and I bet the school system in Finland is public

Meaning no significant private school system at the elementary level

Is that correct?

[tonysam]

7. I take ANY nonsense about "test scores" with a giant grain of salt.

And Finland is homogeneous, like Japan and all of those other countries touted by the right wing and privatizers who claim our school system is shitty.

This "achievement" propaganda is just that--bullshit. BBC should be ashamed for peddling it.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[damntexdem]

9. Because they're Finnishing schools?

;-)

[Fresh_Start]

11. all teachers have a masters degree

and teachers in secondary school are required to have a masters degree in the subject they teach before they are accepted to be trained to be teachers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. They are also well paid and respected

[Hannah Bell]

16. GINI index: Finland: 26.9, US: 40.8

Distribution of Income or Consumption by Percentage Share

Lowest 10%

Finland: 4.2
US: 1.9


Lowest 20%

Finland: 10.0
US: 5.4


Second 20%

Finland: 14.2
US: 10.7


Third 20%

Finland: 17.6
US: 15.7


Fourth 20%

Finland: 22.3
US: 22.4


Highest 20%

Finland: 35.8
US: 45.8


Highest 10%

Finland: 21.6
US: 29.6

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/table2_7.pdf


Such a freaking mystery!!!

When people are poor & segregated by lack of money v. the rest of society, they don't behave like upper/middle class people. OMG!!! Revelation!!!

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Very telling data, thanks. nt

[jody]

19. Finland, 5.4 million people, 92% speak Finnish, 84% Lutheran Church , Ethnic groups: Finnish 93.4 %

Finland-Swedes 5.6 %
Russians 0.5 %
Estonians 0.3 %
Roma 0.1 %
Sami 0.1 %

[Dr. Strange]

21. Less diversity = higher test scores

So maybe we should be getting rid of students who don't speak Finnish.

[jody]

22. Or those who don't speak Finnish strive to be part of the Finnish culture and society? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

23. your point being single-race, single-language countries do better with schoolwork?

that must be why iceland does worse than the us and australia & the russian federation do better (8th grade math).

japan's minorities include koreans, who do significantly worse in japan than they do in korea though they were usually born in korea, lived in korea for generations, speak japanese & are basically indistinguishable from japanese.

minorities include burakumin, who are genetically & linguistically identical to japanese, but traditionally discriminated against by japan's birth registry system, which confined them to certain neighborhoods & occupations. they also do significantly worse than "normal" japanese, even in iq scores.

both, however, were traditionally economically discriminated against in japan & "ghettoized".

it's not about diversity, it's about the social meanings attached to diversity & their economic consequences.

[jody]

24. Interpret as you will. I simply gave facts. Perhaps the US should outsource our teaching to Finland.

[Hannah Bell]

25. more facts:

-- lower-performing iceland (on 4th & 8th-grade math) has only 300,000 people and one of the most homogenous populations on earth.

-- 10% of finns speak a first language other than finnish (do the math on table 3)

http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/finland.php?aid=421

-- high-performing russia (math) has 170 national minorities, at least 25 commonly spoken minority languages, & even more languages spoken only by a small number of people.

-- high-performing switzerland has four national languages, the biggest of which (german) is home language to only 64% of the population.

-- "homogenous" high-performing japan has about 8 ethnic or cultural minority groups plus more dialect variation in its majority language than english does in the us, to the point where within living memory, some japanese dialects were near unintelligible to outsiders from other parts of the country.

-- high-performing singapore = 74% "various chinese linguistic groups," 13% malay, 9% indian, with the rest "eurasians, arabs, etc.". 51% buddhist/taoist, 15% muslim, 14% christian, + some smaller religions (e.g. sikh).

-- high-performing france = 15% of population speaks mother tongue other than french. about 10% of french residents are of arab or african descent.

-- high performing netherlands (#1 12th grade math, #2 12th grade science) = in 2008, immigrants were nearly 20% of the population, and non-western immigrants comprised the majority of immigrants.

http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/netherlands.php?aid=421.

-- high performing new zealand: maori = 14%, "asian" = 9%, "other pacific peoples" = 7%, "european" = 78% (percentage not = 100 because "some identify with more than one group").

-- high-performing australia: in 2001, 23.1% of Australians were born overseas; the five largest immigrant groups were those from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Vietnam, and China. about 2.4% of australia's population = indigenous aboriginals. 79% of population speaks only english in the home.

-- high performing sweden: currently 12% of the population is foreign-born, with most immigration since the 70s from non-european countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia#Demography

etc.

[jody]

27. Perhaps the US should outsource our teaching to other countries. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

28. they already do.

here's another fact:

the majority of the countries supposedly ahead of us have more equal distributions of income, including finland: gini 27 v. us 40.

you might want to take a look at this too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=219&topic_id=23410&mesg_id=23531

[Sabriel]

18. Let's guess why

Most of them speak Finnish at home and are taught (primarily) in Finnish at school.

Intelligence isn't an epithet there. You're not "acting Russian" if you like to read and are interested in school.

Health care, dental care, food, good housing, access to technology...all those things aren't an issue.

They spend money on schools instead of "defense." They have enough text, materials, heat, classroom space.


In short, it's no mystery. We could be like Finland, too, if we didn't spend $9 billion a month (or more) on bullshit overseas campaigns.

[FBaggins]

20. Who says that they do?

Suddenly test scores are a valid assessment of the schools?

More importantly... take a look at WHO takes the test. Academic schooling in Finland is only mandatory through age 14. Starting at age 15 they are split into an academic track (leading to college) and trade schools (leading directly to the workforce).

So I'm just guessing, but it looks like there's reason to believe that only their best students TAKE the 15yr-old OECD exams. How would American students do if we only tested our A and B students?

[Hannah Bell]

26. good catch. that would also seem to explain why homogenous iceland ranks below the us 4th-8th

grade, then jumps above it in 12th. schooling is compulsory for children 6-16, then splits into various tracks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iceland


you'd need to know all the ins & outs of the various ed systems to interpret the test numbers, besides the ins & outs of the test administration itself.