A while back, a reader wrote that we should try to be like Sweden, because it is among the “best in the world.” Sweden now has for-profit schools and choice, so presumably the choice-based reforms of our day will make us more like Sweden.
I pointed out that on the latest PISA, Sweden does not outperform the U.S.. Its ranking are virtually identical, despite the fact that Sweden does not have our high rate of child poverty, nor our demographic diversity.
A reader commented today:
| Facts: Sweden’s education system gained high quality outcomes as an almost completely public system. Sweden has steadily dropped in education output rankings since introducing the public/private hybrid. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good old GERM. There are so many lessons to be gleaned from Sweden, but our politicians will never listen, nor learn them. I wonder if there are any provisions that would allow Sweden to revert back to the old system?
I wish that were the case here in the U.S. I love teaching and will probably never be able to retire (affordability is my biggest concern) so I’m ready, willing, and able to help rebuild our formerly privatized/charter system. I’ve recently passed the Praxis Special Ed. and School Leaders Licensure Assessment (SLLA), which I’m sure will come in handy. All I need now is the Masters for either and I’m ready to go. Hopefully, the brakes will be applied to this mad rush to convert public schools for private gain, and my offer will be moot..
Diane, and my fellow education activists, if you could go anywhere in the world for 10 weeks, expenses paid, to study education practices that would be of value to us here, where would that be?
Alternately, if you could go abroad where there are no adequate schools, and you could make a difference to implement a truly equitable system, where would that be?
This is not an academic question.
I don’t have time to go anywhere! I went to Finland last fall, and I loved what I saw.
If I thought I could make a difference, I would go to Korea to help the teachers there, who are struggling to resist the government’s pressure for more and more high-stakes testing. Just yesterday, the head of the teachers’ union in Korea asked me to write a letter to support their cause. If I could help them by being there, it would make a huge difference to them and to us, because so many of our leaders think Korea has the answers to getting high scores. The Korean teachers know that their current answers are wrong for kids.