If you want to know why Finnish schools are so admired, consider the following:
Finnish schools do not have standardized testing until college entry. Admission to teacher education is highly selective. Teaching is a prestigious career. Child poverty is very low. Finnish schools emphasize the arts, physical activity, and a broad curriculum.
If you can’t visit Finland, read Pasi Sahlberg’s book Finnish Lessons, which is now being read around the world.
Pasi Sahlberg just won the Grawemeyer Award for 2013 for this major book. Please send a copy to President Obama so he can learn about the ingredients of great education policy.
If you don’t have time to read the book (you should make time!), read LynNell Hancock’s article in the Smithsonian magazine about her visit to Finland. Hancock was education editor for Newsweek and now teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have read “Finnish Lessons” and found it enlightening and refreshing (although it was badly organised I feel, with much repetition). It really should be mandatory reading for any all education decision makers. Sadly, most seem to lack any kind of experience or training in education. They deeply prescribe and control teachers to do exactly what is assumed to be required of them, but an opposite looseness of control is imposed upon them.
In Finland, teachers are trusted professionals empowered to do their jobs by respecting governments. Not a hard scenario to envisage as wise, but one rarely adopted.
Could it be that Dr. Sahlberg intentionally repeated certain key ideas and facts as a reinforcing device to din them into the thick heads of the sort of education decision makers you’ve mentioned? The book’s audience is the world, and if there’s anyone who knows what educational planners are all about in most countries, it’s certainly Dr. Sahlberg.
Another important factor is that they are not interested in “school choice.” There are no private schools or charter schools, just a lot of equitably funded public schools. Check out Anu Partanen’s great piece in the Atlantic: http://bit.ly/U6uGdH.
Finland does have a great deal to offer, but let’s remember that there system is not as different from ours as it would seem. They have the mother of all high stakes testing–an exam in each of the core subject areas that determines college eligibility. The biggest problem with our testing system is the number of tests–something we can change. They also have the equivalent of public school choice. Any Fin can attend any public school. They do pay their teachers a great wage and the selectivity they use to choose teachers is not that far from the logic of Teach for America–the highest academic achievers make the beat teachers. We are not as far away from the Finland system as it would seem.
There is no Teach for Finland. No teacher in Finland has less than a five-year preparatory course. It is difficult to become a teacher in Finland: only one of every ten applicants is accepted into the teacher education program. Yes, they are high achievers, but unlike TFA, they plan to make a career of teaching. Teaching has high prestige in Finland.
My point was that like TFA, Finland starts from a premise that teaching warrants some of the highest achieving students coming out of school. 5 weeks does not make a good teacher. I certainly agree with you. But by the same token, I’m not sure a low achieving student makes the best teacher either.
And there are high achieving students who failed as teachers as well….you have to know your subject matter and be able to relate to kids…many intelligent people don’t have what it takes. They become bloviating “reformers” instead.
I certainly don’t want to make any blanket statements, but some of the “lowest achieving” students make the best teachers precisely because they know what it’s like to struggle and not understand, which makes them rather more patient. Hopefully those lowest achieving students have had some teachers along the lines who have used various creative methods to reach them, which in turn they will be able to use to reach their lowest achieving students.
I’ve never been a teacher per se, but my first job out of college was as a teaching assistant in a residential school. Academics had always been easy for me, so when I dealt with kids who simply didn’t grasp the material, I was at a dead end – I didn’t have any other way to explain things except the way that was obvious to me. Now, granted, my training was in psychology, not teaching, and probably if I’d had an education degree I probably would have had more tools in my tool belt and perhaps I would have been a better teacher (I did get much better over the three years I worked there, for what it’s worth). But I don’t really think that high test scores necessarily translate into good teaching ability any more than low test scores necessarily translate into poor teaching ability.
By coincidence I just checked “Finnish Lessons” out from the library a few days ago, and will now move it to the top of my reading queue due to this timely exhortation. The suggestion to mail a copy to Obama (and/or other politicians) is a good one…I plan to do it!
Merry Christmas to Diane & everyone in this blog community!
According to the 2000 Finnish Policy Report, early education and care is offered to all parents with children birth to age 6 and is supported by either the state or municipality. Early education staff typically have a degree in early education or social development and there is a Core Curricula across the varying settings, which has been in place since 1998. 78% of young children are in care full-day so their parents can work regarldess of income levels. Until the US starts treating quality early education as a critical part of our education system, no matter what it does to the K-12 system, we will never make gains anywhere equal to Finland, China, India, or other global competitors.
US wants end results of in-tact families, no poverty, no crime, excellent schools, no gun deaths, no unemployment, no illiteracy, no homelessness, no mental illness, no obesity, no dementia, no autism, etc….BUT, as a nation we know what needs to be done to achieve those goals and we do not want to do the work to get there. Sounds rather adolescent. Young country, young and immature behaviors. Not the makings of a stable and long-lasting society. Maybe US will mature, soon!!! Finland is miles ahead of us in many, many ways.
You have hit the nail on the head there. The book on Finnish education did not try to hide the fact that the Finns as a people are naturally attracted to equality, honesty and social cohesion. This is the perfect platform not just for healthy school life but for healthy, happy people. The US way of life is one that favours individual endeavour at the expense, all to often, of the many. Social cohesion requires a curtailing of the American dream in a sense. And I am not sure that many would buy into that. But as you say, you cannot get there without change, and change is treated with hostility – a kind of blind-spot.
I am interested in the apparent tracking of Finnish students into either vocational or academic high schools. We have heard a lot about their elementary programs, which obviously provide a good foundation, but not much about their secondary education. I was surprised to hear that they tracked secondary students, given the recent discussions we have been having on this blog. Comments?
Read Pasi Sahlberg’s book “Finnish Lessons,” which describes Finnish education system in detail. Everyone has a common program for first eight grades. Then students may choose either an academic or vo-tech program. It is not difficult to switch after making the choice. About 40% choose the vo-tech option.