William Doyle was a Fulbright Scholar in Finland, and his child attended the local school. When Doyle returned to New Tork City, he went in search of a Finnish-style public school and found it. It is called The Earth School.
“My child now goes to PS 364, also known as the Earth School, a little-known gem of a public K-5 elementary in the East Village.
“The student population is some 50% black and Latino children. Half the students qualify for free and reduced priced lunch, and 23% of students receive special education services.
“If American teachers built a school, instead of politicians and bureaucrats, it would look a lot like this. Founded as an experimental program in 1992 by a group of New York City teachers who wanted, in the words of the school’s website, “to create a peaceful, nurturing place to stimulate learning in all realms of child development, intellectual, social, emotional and physical,” the Earth School is guided by the values of “hands-on exploration, an arts-rich curriculum, responsible stewardship of the Earth’s resources, harmonious resolution of conflict and parent-teacher partnership.”
“While “working rigorously in literacy and math” the students are encouraged “to explore, experiment, and even sometimes make a mess in the pursuit of learning.”
“The atmosphere of the school is one of warmth and safety. Teacher experience is prized here — the principal, Abbe Futterman, was one of the founding teachers of the school a quarter-century ago, and many other staff members have worked here for at least five or 10 years.
“Children at the school are assessed every day, not primarily by standardized tests — the majority of parents opt their kids out of state exams — but by certified, professional childhood educators who provide the ultimate in “personalized instruction”: the flesh-and-blood kind.
“Children at the school learn in part through play in the early years. They are encouraged to ask challenging questions and think for themselves. They are encouraged toto be creative and compassionate, and to make their own decisions. Children get unstructured, free-play outdoor recess in the big play yard most days.
“Like employees at Google who are given 20% of their time to devote to projects of their own choice, children are given a free afternoon every week to pursue their own self-chosen “passion projects.”
“In a striking innovation I especially appreciate, parents are actually invited into the school and directly into the classrooms for the morning drop-off, and given a room in the heart of the schoo, to relax, chat and plan much-needed school fundraisers.
“The school is not perfect, and it is not for everybody. If you’re looking for universal iPads, data walls, digital learning badges or boot-camp behavior modification in your child’s classroom, you won’t find them here.
“But somehow, this oasis of child-centered, evidence-based childhood education has managed to survive and flourish for a quarter-century in the heart of the New York City public school system.“
If it can happen in New York City, it can happen everywhere. If we ever get over our love affair with testing, anything is possible. Even a normal childhood.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Class sizes aren’t as small at the Earth school, which most people including the Finnish education minister have said is critical to their schools’ success. Though the Earth school only selectively reports class size, what they do report ranges from 23-25 on average in Kindergarten and 3rd grade. Meanwhile Finnish schools generally keep class sizes below 20 in these grades.https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=EDU_CLASS
Better than my kid’s elementary school.
I needed something positive today.
Me TOO!
Me 3!
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Imagine if possible, a public school in the United States where teachers are actually valued and children are allowed to be children. Common Core and high-stakes, rank-and-punish tests do not rule this K-5 public school.
I forwarded this article to my Indiana state Senator Niemeyer (R) and Representative Slager (R). I emphasized that this type of school would really make a difference in Indiana. They should forget about standardized testing, vouchers and charter schools. This kind of school would eliminate the stress that is causing teachers to quit.
I don’t expect them to listen but I keep trying.
If the metric of staff stability were ever considered when rating schools, I might be induced to pay attention. I cannot understand how the public discussion of education does not include the obvious ways to improve it.
The most obvious way is to reward teachers with the cheapest type of pay anyone can get: intellectual independence. Value teachers personally and professionally and they will work for food. Almost literally. Teachers who find a comfortable place where learning is taking place always stay there. If you find a stable staff, you will find a school that is loved by its community and is contributing.
Phenomenal line: the cheapest pay anyone can get (and still be immensely happy): INTELLECTUAL INDEPENDENCE. Money means nothing when we become top-down corporate slaves.
There are actually lots of these schools all over the place, but unfortunately, most of them are not public.
They are called Montessori schools and they were popular in Europe at least 10 years before Earth school was founded.
One of the encouraging developments in public education over the last 25 years, imho, has been the spread of Montessori elementary public schools; some district, some charter.
Sounds like a great school!
The emphasis now is on math and science, important but…. IN other words, the things which the corporate CEOs think will benefit THEM. Serfs to fill in those jobs which
THEY think important for their benefit.
I see education as bringing out the best in every child, to their highest potential as a human being, something rarely if ever heard in the halls of Congress.
I remember when not only that but when children were expected to learn how to participate in a democratic form of government. Of course if we do not value democratic government, small d, they why bother.
But in so very many things in government now why rely on experts when the president already knows all he needs to know?
Many anti-progressive (or progressive sceptic) edubloggers like to point out that Finland’s PISA results are going down, and so, you know … Armageddon. They’re so anxious to find any chink in the armour that gives them permission to say “oh, don’t talk about Finland – don’t you know it’s a joke? Failed experiment” or something like that.
Finland doesn’t care if it is first or second or third. The Finns do not put much stock in test scores. Their kids don’t take standardized tests.
We still have so much to learn from them. I get frustrated when I hear people bagging Finland. (Sorry, an Australian term there …)
David, agreed.
Why the race to nowhere?
“Finland is Finished”
Finland is finished
Their children can play!!
Their future’s diminished
On PISA they’ll pay
How can we create schools like this in other states where there isn’t a culture of opt-outs? I don’t know how we can have Finnish-style schools so long as there’s standardized testing and teachers/schools/districts are judged on the scores.
Exactly!!!!
In our public school division in Prince William County (a Wash DC suburb and the 2nd largest in Virginia), we do not have charter schools. (In fact, Virginia has only 8 or 9 charters statewide.)
However, starting back in the 1990’s (maybe as a way to block charters), the county implemented a “choice” system where each middle and high school has a “specialty,” e.g., IB, AP, STEM, performing arts, creative writing, horticulture, culinary, early childhood development, construction, automotive, etc.), & most often a few specialties. Students who want to attend one of these schools outside of assigned neighborhood boundaries can so long as there’s room in the school (most of the schools accept transfers except one high school that has overcrowded conditions because of overdevelopment). Transportation by the school division is provided to everyone free of charge.
We also have 2 elementary schools that are designed to have a more academic focus, uniforms, & mandates parental involvement. They are lottery-only since they are popular (but still free transportation).
I’d like to petition to have a Finnish school in our county. I think it would work best at the elementary level. I know that it would be popular and probably end up as a lottery school. But I just don’t see how it could work with the standardized testing.
Virginia isn’t a Common Core state but we have our own version of standardized testing called the Standards of Learning (29 from grade 3-12, although that number will be reduced soon). However, there isn’t a culture of opt-outs in the state (only a very small percentage opt-out).
So my question above is a serious one and I’m looking for advice: how can we create a Finnish school within our division under the standardized testing regime? Is that possible?
It’s great that the Earth School has a very high opt-out percentage so it can be Finnish-like, but what about the rest of us?
This school wouldn’t be my cup of tea—one of my kids in particular would loathe multi-grade classrooms and mostly project-based, student-directed work—but I am truly happy that it exists for parents who want it as an option.
That said, let’s note the following: the Earth School is a school of choice. It enrolls students via lottery and strongly suggests that parents tour to make sure the school is a good fit for the child (wink). It is considerably whiter (36.5% to 17.4%) and wealthier (43% free-lunch eligible to 64%) than its home district, and it does not serve children who require a self-contained special education setting. It is co-located with another NYC DOE school that is 85% black and Latino and 93% low-income (the district as a whole is 58.7% black and Latino and 63% low-income); Kate Taylor wrote about the juxtaposition in this piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/nyregion/a-manhattan-district-where-school-choice-amounts-to-segregation.html.
It’s okay when a school engages in low-key “right fit” enrollment screening, refuses to serve self-contained students, serves kids with far fewer challenges in general, and has a PTA with a $135,000 budget (per its 2016 Form 990) with a $250 annual “ask” all while being co-located with a high-poverty school, as long it is “progressive” and “Finnish,” is that how this works? Because otherwise I have no idea how people can praise this school (or others like it – the Central Parks, MSC, etc) while opposing charters or choice.
Tim,
To my knowledge, no hedge fund manager has bestowed millions of dollars on The Earth School. Is Eva the only school with a direct line to John Paulson, Dan Loeb, Bruce Kovner, Joel Greenblatt, and the other billionaires?
Is it a public school or a charter school?
Public.
That says it all. Yes, it is okay for a public school, publicly funded and controlled to set conditions for the model. It is a choice within the public system, transparently open to public scrutiny. It would have been a great fit for my oldest child and not so hot for others. That’s okay. It is wonderful when a school system is able to provide such choices whether they are in a separate school or within one or two classrooms. I really got very annoyed when I heard that some parents were complaining that their children did not get to have some experience that (a) teacher(s) within another building (or classroom) had developed. It led to a standardization between buildings/classrooms that in some respects was healthy but also diminished the freedom of buildings and/or teachers to “color outside the lines.” I was always impressed by how different buildings/teachers addressed the needs of their students. Each one was unique; each one was loved by its families. That “How come I don’t have what you have?” mantra can be really petty and self defeating.
I’m not sure how Eva and these other folks found their way into the conversation, but since they’re here: the hedge fund managers and billionaires and one-percenters actually do support the Earth School and all public schools in New York City. There is certainly a good debate to be had regarding reform to capital gains and high-earner rates, but those are federal taxes, and it is overwhelmingly through state and local taxes (including a very progressive New York City resident personal income tax) that schools are funded.
The 1% in New York City makes 40% of the city’s income, but generates 50% of the city’s income tax receipts and 56% of the state’s. Put simply, it is only because of the concentration of the uber-wealthy in Manhattan and downstate New York that the city and state can shower the NYC DOE with resources—about $27,300 per NYC traditional public school student in 2017-2018.
Back to my original question: the Earth School does everything that charters are accused of doing, but worse. It chooses motivated parents via a lottery and on top of that has a de facto mandatory touring procedure where it can dissuade kids who “aren’t a good fit” from applying in the first place. It does not serve children who require self-contained special education services. It is much whiter and wealthier than its district, but glaringly more so than the other NYC DOE school it shares a building with, a school that is is nearly 100% low-poverty and 85% black and Latino. It asks parents to donate $250/year in outside money (don’t forget the corporate match!!) and has a $135,000 PA budget for enrichments.
Why is it acceptable for the Earth School to engage in and benefit from the alleged practices that in your eyes make charters a destabilizing threat to public education?
That explains why so many of the hedge funders live in CT, not NYC, or (as one of them told me) are “tax fugitives” in Florida.
So no answer to the essential question, then: it’s fine that the Earth School does what it does. PS 64 is there to take one for the team by absorbing the unmotivated, the “bad fits,” the poor, and the hardest-to-educate and most expensive special education kids.
Seeking out lower taxes and lower costs isn’t exclusive to hedge funders. There are so many UFT retirees in Florida that the union maintains a big office there, and that’s even though all NYC/NYS pensions are completely exempt from NY local/state taxes. Many hundreds of thousands of NYC’s municipal and private sector workers are NYC income tax and housing cost (it is expensive to live in a school zone with mostly nonpoor white kids, like PS 321) fugitives who flee to the suburbs/exurbs and reliably and happily elect Republican legislators who will fight to the death things like the commuter income tax, dedicated transit taxes, and affordable housing/home rule reform. But we’re all in this together!
I get it, Tim.
Those fat cat retired teachers in Florida are just like the billionaires who move there to escape taxes.
“The 1% in New York City makes 40% of the city’s income, but generates 50% of the city’s income tax receipts and 56% of the state’s. Put simply, it is only because of the concentration of the uber-wealthy in Manhattan and downstate New York that the city and state can shower the NYC DOE with resources—about $27,300 per NYC traditional public school student in 2017-2018.”
That argument is really old. None of those people are donating so much of their income that it affects their lifestyles. I don’t know how the taxes work in in NY or NYC, but I do know that more often than not it is those who are just getting by who pay the price. The dollar amount they pay does not match the 1%, but what they pay affects their lifestyle. Education is a public good that will save society money in the long run.