Pasi Sahlberg spoke at Wellesley College in a public lecture on October 13. The video has just been released.
As you will see, his presentation is an interactive performance, not a traditional lecture. He uses video, music, and data easily and flawlessly. He makes us think. He educates us.
The full video is an hour and a half. It includes not only Pasi’s presentation, but introductions by Barbara Beatty, the historian of early childhood education and chair of Wellesley’s education department; Dr. Paula Johnson, the 14th president of the College; me, introducing Howard Gardner; and Howard Gardner introducing Pasi.
Wait until you have some free time, kick back, and enjoy!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ah, how sweet and enjoyable this presentation. I wish Hillary would watch. Fear that we get Arne Duncan redux with her.
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Since public schools in most states have lost funding since 2008 and ed reform advocates insist they have increased funding for pre-k, could one of the thousands of researchers possibly look into whether states are just robbing Peter to pay Paul with prek funding?
Is this pre-k funding coming out of the K-12 budget?
Is this another ed reform rip-off disguised as an advance?
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It seems to me that around the time A Nation at Risk was published, and brought with it unfettered corporate involvement in public schools, high schools were made the problem, and reform of K-8 elementary schools was made the solution to get kids ready for high school.
Then when that reform did not work, the K-8 elementary schools were made the problem, and reform of the schools by breaking them into K-5 elementary schools and 6-8 middle schools was made the solution to again get kids ready for high school.
Then when that reform did not work, 6-8 middle schools were made the problem, and reform of K-5 elementary schools was made the solution to get kids ready for middle school.
Then when that reform did not work, K-5 elementary schools were made the problem, so now reform of zero-to-pre-K has been made the solution to get kids ready for kindergarten.
Then when that reform does not work, what’s next? Conception-to-term to get kids ready for birth?
In spite of all the failed reforms, some folk – such as Atlanta school board members and their superintendent – still go around espousing “some children are not ready for kindergarten.” They show they have absolutely no conception of their having made kindergarten not being ready for the kids.
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Robbing Peter to pay Paul who then slides out the back door.
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Thank you! Terrific. Too bad GREED seems to to reign via ridiculous competitive angsts. Competition does NOT bring out the best in education. Sad that our presidential candidates seem so brain dead and soul dead.
The reforms here in the USA are really DEFORMS to the max. So sad. And yet our great public school teachers prevail under awful conditions and manage to do a good job, despite DC and the oligarchs.
Beware of G.E.R.M. It’s bad.
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Thanks for this lecture, although I had a problem with the sound quality. I wish our policymakers would view this as he brings up topics that they will never discuss. Yet these very issues including how we treat women and politicize our educational system. are harming our young people and nation. I do hope Churchill is correct, and that we do the right thing after we have tried everything else. We need to start looking at reality, and not what special interest groups want us to see.
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Diane, Thank you for sharing Pasi’s presentation. He mentions three problems keeping American education from becoming better: 1. our current reform ideas of competition, standardization, standardized testing, etc.; 2. our school funding is inequitable; and 3. we cannot implement the great ideas of Dewey and Gardner b/c we have no “shared education policy” (which we actually do and it’s problem 1 above) because we have a decentralized political system for education (e.g., school boards). I would love to hear your views about his position on our school boards. I was under the impression having local control over our schools was a good thing. Thank you.
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I noticed that as a contradiction, charleyandginger.
At this point, we do have a shared national education policy, and it is everything that Pasi opposes.
I don’t think local school boards are a problem. They are part of the fabric of our democracy.
What is needed is a shared philosophy of education–that education is for the cultivation and development of our humanity, not for the preparation of future workers in the global economy, although that may happen too.
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Thank you. We are a big country and as was stated by Linda Darling Hammond I think, some of the countries Pasi spoke of are as small as some of our states. So good to know you saw it as a contradiction too. All the best.
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Thanks for bringing that up Charley and thanks for addressing it, Diane. I was at the talk in Wellesley and that was one point that I didn’t agree with him on. MA has been a prime example of democratically elected school boards standing up against ballot question 2 when our state appointed board of Ed is filled with charter backers. (And our US govt is as well). I do hope Diane that you can discuss this further with Pasi. I also think that when the elementary teacher asked about her class size issue and I believe Pasi recommended to blog about it, that’s when going to a school board meeting and making a public comment or asking to present information can be powerful and help lead to changes in policy and funding.
Thank you Diane for starting this important lecture series!
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I will!
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Amen
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Diane “I don’t think local school boards are a problem. They are part of the fabric of our democracy.”
I think the problem is the state school boards. In many states (maybe all) members are appointed, not elected. I don’t see any argument for this. Is there one?
If each state elected its school board, then each state would have a similar organizational structure to Finland. The significant difference is that in some states in the US, the state takes over “bad” schools and may give them to charter operators, and local school boards have no saying into the matter.
This lack of autonomy is striking and I assume, cannot happen in Finland.
In one of the videos, Sahlberg says that
Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.
I think, local autonomy ensures responsibility, and that’s exactly what’s taken away in our states by not trusting them.
I think it’s human nature: people who feel trusted, act more responsibly, and those who feel controlled, will just do what’s absolutely necessary not to be punished.
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Of course, the contrast to public higher ed is striking: there, boards have great autonomy, but the boards are appointed by the state (at least in many states, directly by the governor).
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” the contrast to public higher ed is striking: there, boards have great autonomy, but the boards are appointed by the state ”
But whether public or private, there is balance in higher ed, because regional accrediting bodies require shared governance with faculty, hence faculty senates that do actually wield some important decision making powers. I’ve never heard of teachers having power like that in lower ed, but in my experience, this is very real in higher ed and usually functions quite well.
Accreditors are very attuned to that, too. I worked at a private college where the accrediting body questioned the validity of our faculty’s shared governance, as it was clear to them that the trustees on our board were friends and employees of the billionaire instrumental in establishing the college, who is a convicted felon. He had tried to distance himself from the school, because we couldn’t get Title IV (federal financial aid for students) due to his status as a convicted felon.
However, just like the charter management organizations (CMOs) that own a multitude of subsidiary companies which profit from being on the school’s payroll, enabling CMOs to double dip and triple dip, the convicted felon tried to hide inside a stack of Russian dolls the various companies he owned which were involved in running our school. But our accreditors were onto that shell game. They realized our faculty senate was really a sham and, ultimately, they withdrew our accreditation due to these governance issues.
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So which video would I rather watch, King’s or Sahlberg’s?
Is that really a choice?
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King will make your skin crawl
Pasi will enlighten and delight
Your choice
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Not quite close enough to Halloween to want to any skin crawling!
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Proudly said:
It takes a Scandinavian!
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Sahlberg’s presentation should be viewed by 100% of both Houses of Congress, the entire White House staff including the president, and the 8 current justices of the Supreme Court, every state governor and every state legislature. Once finished, give them all a test and tell them if they fail, they lose their position in government and will never be allowed to serve in any position, appointed or elected. In fact, they lose their citizenship and are never allowed to vote again.
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I don’t think they would be willing to watch an hour long presentation. But this 11 minute one, on pursuing equity rather than excellence, could do a good enough job
My feeling is, though, that the US Congress has the attitude of “Nobody can tell the No. 1 country in the world what to do”, hence the quote from one of the Sahlberg videos applies
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
The quote doesn’t seem to be from Churchill, btw.
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He probably didn’t take the time to fact check the quote but for sure we know that the corporate fraudsters don’t fact check anything as they project next quarter’s profits and scheme to boost them higher anyway they can.
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Yes, Pasi did mention this startling truth: “Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opportunity — has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade. Worse most of the deepest-cutting states have also cut income tax rates, weakening their main revenue source for supporting schools.“
http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/after-nearly-a-decade-school-investments-still-way-down-in-some-states
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the neo-lib-con coalition (a coin with two sides, one side ed and the other blue, that are exactly the same) and the libertarians are waging war against the public sector and the power of an elected government, anything democratic that gets in their way, that was designed protect the citizens, and these crooks have been winning this war since Reagan was president with tax cuts and deficit spending that profits the few.
This has happened before in history. In fact it happened during the Han Dynasty before the birth of Christ and when Emperor Wu Di, who was against this insanity died, the profit worshiping private sector corrupted the public sector without (Wu Di would have beheaded them for what they did) fear of punishment and had its way causing the eventual collapse of the Han Dynasty.
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Hi veteran educator and celebrated author, Mr. Lloyd Lofthouse:
The truth is there are many DEPLORABLE and SNOBBISH leaders who are willing trade their souls for submitting to communists, fascists, and religious cult groups who then CONTROL them into doing bad deeds to all other innocent human beings/society, so that they can enjoy temporarily the fame, fortune and sexual fulfillment given by their puppet masters.
It is up to all educators who are open minded and knowledgeable in WORLD history to cultivate all young mind/learners who are might not be fortunate to continue studying for their undergraduate degree in Liberal and Arts.
Respectfully yours,
May
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I think this link is a very interesting link. Whoever does not have appetite for academe, will not appreciate this link.
It takes lots of endurance, intellectual mindset, “to be served” mindset, and passion to learn for reaching out inter-connectivity among all different cultures in the world. Yes, 50 pages in CV is the shortest way to show the resilience in any intelligent and experienced leader. I hope that you will enjoy the clear sound and interesting conversation from this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAHExjXA_mU
(This link is about New Wellesley President Paula Johnson’s Appointment Remarks)
Also, I do not think the sound system is wrong in Pasi’s presentation because Dr. Ravitch, Dr. Paula Johnson, and other presenters are well and clearly spoken in the same sound system at Wellesley University. Back2basic
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Dearest Dr. Ravitch:
I profoundly appreciate your love, dedication, precious time and donation to sponsor all well-known speakers to Wellesley University lecture talk series about Education.
Thanks to this link, I have a chance to watch many other interesting links about Wellesley University. I crashed out all night to watch Dr, Paula Johnson’s remark re: her acceptance speech, and two Wellesley students who interviewed Dr. P. Johnson, and the last one is about all students’ activities in Welllesley University.
This is truly American dream for all females who are passionate with conviction to social causes.
I hope that all “rich enough” entrepreneurs will follow your “high spirit” footsteps in order to maintain and to sustain the WORLD ENVIOUS DREAM of American Democracy.
Very respectfully yours, and tons of love,
May
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I tried to watch it even on my smart TV, but the sound was not great due to the echoing in the room, so I had difficulty with understanding. My feeling is that instead of taking the sound directly from the microphone, it was accidentally taken form the room.
I any case, the most interesting statement for me was the one about equity: that’s what Finland puts ahead of everything else—and certainly ahead of excellence. “Amazingly”, equity implies excellence according to the Finnish and some other examples.
Here is a talk by Sahlberg where this point is emphasized more—and the sound quality is better.
In this short talk, it was quite surprising to see Italy doing as well as the Scandinavian countries while it was depressing to see how low the Eastern European countries are on both excellence and equity. I don’t think that’s how it was under communism. Maybe somebody here has more precise information.
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Another remarkable part of the lecture was the criticism of the high speed of change, which he demonstatred by the addition of those numbers. If changes are too fast, we don’t think. Of course, edreformers know this well, and this is why they try to implement their ideas as if there was a crisis we need to resolve fast before everything collapses, and America will be left behind for good.
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Thank you Máté Wierdl.
IMHO, all business-minded people grab or loot public fund as much and as quick as possible because they know that public will know sooner or later.
Communists, Fascists and religious cult groups have the same tactic and strategies of grab and loot by force or terror before people wake up and smell the coffee = their lip-services.
I think that people need to travel and to learn local language in order to learn the truth from ordinary citizens in made-believe democracy, NOT from propaganda that deplorable and snobbish citizens who live from little fortune that bad authority tell them what to say.
We know who is/are in Ed-reformers group! May
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