Pasi Sahlberg, the distinguished Finnish educator who has been in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for the past two years, has written a terrific essay about the myths and fallacies that govern education policy today. One is that schools should be able to do more with less. This myth enables policymakers to cut the education budget, eliminating vital programs and services, while expecting schools to get better results. This is nonsense. It makes no sense.
Sahlberg writes:
Governments in Alberta and Finland are under economic pressure to reduce public spending as a result of failed national politics and unpredictable global economics. When government budgets get off track, bad news for education systems follow. The recently defeated Finnish government carried out huge cuts in education infrastructure. As a result, small schools were closed, teaching staff lost their jobs and morale among educators declined. Albertans are now facing similar threats.
When the going gets tough in our wealthy societies, the powers-that-be often choose quick fixes. In search of a silver bullet instead of sustained systemic improvement, politicians turn their eyes on teachers, believing that asking them to do more with less can compensate for inconvenient reductions in school resources. With super teachers, some of them say, the quality of education will improve even with lesser budgets. While some might suggest leadership is doing more with less, I would counter that real political leadership is about getting the appropriate resources in place to create a vibrant society.
“Teacher effectiveness” is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. It plays a visible role in the education policies of nations where there is a wide range of teacher qualifications and therefore uneven teacher quality. Measuring teacher effectiveness has brought different methods of evaluation to the lives of teachers in many countries. The most controversial of them include what is known as value-added models1 that use data from standardized tests of students as part of the overall measure of the effect that a teacher has on student achievement.
Alberta and Finland are significantly better off than many other countries when it comes to teacher quality and teacher policies. In the United States, for example, there are nearly 2,000 different teacher preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Canada and Finland, only rigorously accredited academic teacher education programs are available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor Finland has fast-track options into teaching (although Teach for Canada is entering the game in Alberta with 40 new recruits in 2015/2016). Teacher quality in successful education systems is a result of careful quality control at the entry stage of teacher education rather than measuring the effectiveness of in-service teachers.
He then goes on to demolish other myths of our time, such as the myth that the teaching profession gets better by recruiting and accepting only “the best and brightest.”
Another myth is that super-teachers can overcome all obstacles. He reminds us that teaching is a team sport, a collaborative activity.
He writes:
The role of an individual teacher in a school is like a player on a football team or musician in an orchestra: all teachers are vital, but the culture of the school is even more important for the quality of the school. Team sports and performing arts offer numerous examples of teams that have performed beyond expectations because of leadership, commitment and spirit.
Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both the Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team U.S.A certainly exceeded the quality of its players.
The third, and related, fallacy is that teachers are the sole determinant of student achievement. He demonstrates that this is wrong. Other factors beyond the teachers’ control are even more important.
Sahlberg reminds his readers that the search for “super-teachers” is a dead end. Schools need to be well-resourced and to base their work on solid research, not hunches by politicians or economists or ideologues.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Amazing that the deformers seem to ignore what happened in Finland, and Finland’s excellent teachers. Some even took trips to Finland. Guess those to went to Finland to learn, didn’t really hear or purposely closed their ears and went on with their own agenda … destroy public schools.
It’s not exactly a “myth”, it’s promoted propaganda. The people promoting it don’t believe it themselves, as evidenced by the fact that they send their kids to $40,000/year private schools or, in some rare cases, elite public schools in affluent areas that spend tons per kid.
Salhberg understands that successful schools are made up of networks of cooperative teachers with a common vision that puts students first. Our current test and punish climate forces teachers to focus on their own survival rather than what is in the best interests of students. Teacher are tossed into a competitive “Hunger Games” world that is bad for teachers, students and schools. This type of environment stifles growth and innovation. If the motive is to destroy rather than build or improve, then the ruling class should be pleased with the havoc and chaos they have inflicted on America’s students and teachers.
“Finnished and Still Developing Mythology”
The mythical Finnish teacher
Is better than US
Their average score on PISA
Is better, I confess
I am always baffled when teams sports are offered up as if exemplary for thinking about the civic and social and educational responsibilities of teachers and schools.
The immediate appeal of the team sports comparison lands on cooperation, meaning everyone plays a specialized role in the overall game, the game happens in a fixed interval of time, referees intervene as needed to keep play going, and there are well-defined rules with penalties known if these are violated.
There are also winners and losers so that the cooperative spirit within a team is perceived to have public value only to the extent that a premium is placed on competition. There is a general understanding that there will be winners and losers.
The supposed virtues of being in the game are learning to lose without feeling like a loser, and learning the value of repeated individual and group practice, grit, and so on.
Goodness knows there are plenty of rules imposed on teachers, and most of these have evolved from thinking that education is akin to a race, a competiton on a global scale, with our students and teachers not in the winners circle.
I hope that readers of this post will think twice about the character of cooperation that can make schools wonderful places to be and also some of the hazards of group think on all matters. I think it is better to think of a school as a vibrant community within a larger community where rules are developed and reviewed by the participants.
“Team Sports”
(also known as DAM Accountability)
The waterboy was fired
For Duncan’s losing year
On B-ball team at Harvard
Responsible, it’s clear
You’ve explained this very well. Thank you. Malaysia’s education is on a state of decline. This is to put it mildly. I daresay, most teachers are frustrated, exhausted and are looking for the first chance to quit.
Read this posting in conjunction with the one just above it on cybercharters.
The rheephormsters don’t believe in doing “more with less” but rather they want “more of what we have so that we have less.” And I mean less money and less education and less of a vital public good.
With all due respect, the reference to team sports is spot on. Just last night, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in game three of the NBA finals. Just like the sheepskinned rheephormista “thought leaders,” basketball “expert” after “expert” after “expert” predicted that Cleveland would get demolished by Golden State because they were down two stars.
Surprise! The Cavaliers are up, 2 games to 1! And at this point, poised to win it all! Turns out that basketball, like all cooperative enterprises that rely heavily on teamwork, gives us a (literally) just-came-over-the-wire-services example of Pasi Sahlberg’s observation in the posting:
“Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both the Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team U.S.A certainly exceeded the quality of its players.”
*I can’t help but add a quote from Michael Jordan, so beloved by Dr. Raj Chetty of the Vergara trial. Raj is just so down on using outliers…except when he uses an outlier among outliers, Michael Jordan, to illustrate his point about using VAManiacal schemes to put super teachers in every classroom. What did the basketball legend say? “There is no ‘i’ in team but there is in win.” Swish! Game winner! A buzzer beater over Raj’s Campbell’s Conjecture!”
😏
And getting a quality education at the Rheephorm 99¢ Store? Pay attention to reality, not rheeality. Just where do the heavyweights of the “new civil rights movement of our time” send their own children? Let’s see, places like Lakeside School, Sidwell Friends, Delbarton School, U of Chicago Lab Schools, Harpeth Hall, Pinefield, Deerfield Academy, Exeter…
Let me put it another way: for all you free market fundamentalists out there that don’t understand standard American English—you want quality outputs, you need quality inputs.
For the exact same reason that Bill Gates send his own children to his alma mater, Lakeside School. The best education. No cost too high. No pains spared. Whatever it takes.
So in the interests of fairness and equity—Lakeside School for everyone. Whatever it takes. No excuses.
Now THAT is one of the human rights issues of our time!
😎
I think whether the team metaphor works depends on the sport and the team.
I have seen plenty of teams, including (especially?) winning ones with a few ‘star” players with me first attitudes and the rest sitting on the bench. When I was in youth hockey, I was one of the ones sitting on the bench (in 5th grade!)
of course, one could argue that the latter “does not play as a team so isn’t really one”, but that would seem to be just a little too convenient. 🙂
I also believe that the emphasis on competition which drives all team sports in the US would be very misguided if applied to education.
Finally, much as I enjoyed watching the series, the Miracle On Ice story is more than a little overused — and an extreme outlier. For example, most non-professionals do not have a chance in hell of winning against professionals no matter how well they play “as a team.”
Krazy TA: The rheephormsters don’t believe in doing “more with less” but rather they want “more of what we have so that we have less.” This is the quote of the day, a brilliant observation. This is the essence of for profit charter schools. Why risk your own money, when you can dupe taxpayers into underwriting your investments? Then, you get to slink off into the shadows with bags of money because “this is a private company.”
Here’s a thought experiment: let’s see when Bill Gates insists on telling the administration of The Lakeside Academy that “we all need to sacrifice” and that “you can’t solve problems by throwing money at them.”
Michael Fiorillo: and he will utter those fateful words the day a certain very very very hot place freezes over.
Not holding my breath. I do not wish to put a cease and desist to exist order on myself.
But you and I and the rest of the hewers of wood and drawers of water won’t have to wait nearly that long if we take matters into our own hands and put muscle behind the ideal of a “better education for all.”
Kind of in the same ball park as the one about the looney 13 colonies that defied a great king and world empire and the mightiest armies of its time. And the fantasy about ending chattel slavery… And the impossible dream of women getting the vote…
I’m with the owner of this blog. We’re going to win this one. And Petulant Bill and his BBBC [BoredBillionaireBoysClub] will just to put up and shut up—
Lakeside School for everyone. No excuses. Whatever it takes.
😎
KrazyTA,
As usual, you hit the ball out of the park!
I am seldom slow to note where I think a simile or metaphor does not quite fit, but perhaps sometimes I should play along and take it for what was intended. Certainly Sahlberg is not an advocate of free market education policy; instead the team analogy is meant to highlight the collaborative nature of community schools that are meant to provide a high quality education for all.