Pasi Sahlberg, the great Finnish educator, has accepted a major research post at the well-funded Gonski Institute of Education in Australia. He will have a wonderful platform to continue his research into major education issues and his advocacy for wholesome, child-friendly schooling.
Pasi’s Award-wining book, Finnish Lessons, has been translated into many languages. If you have not read it, you should. He coined the term GERM to describe the Global Educational Reform Movement, a movement that places standards and test scores above the needs and interests of students.
In this article, Pasi describes the terrible effects of high-stakes testing.
This is an opening shot to introduce him to Australians.
He explains that unnecessary emphasis on competition for test scores has caused the loss of more important activities, including the arts and play. A childhood without play is no childhood at all.
When children learn because they are eager to learn, their comprehension is far greater than when they learn because of compulsion.
Australia is lucky to have this great man to lead educational thought on behalf of the health, creativity, and well-being of children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Re “When children learn because they are eager to learn, their comprehension is far greater than when they learn because of compulsion.” Ah, this is true but misses the point. Learning to live in a world dominated by compulsion is preparation for the corporate world and the world of work. This is exactly what the plutocrats want to happen. They do not want happy, well-adjusted workers who can think for themselves. Drones, they want drones … interchangeable, replaceable drones.
At least the Australians are seeking advice from one of world’s most prominent scholars in education. In our country the GERMs are winning. Public education barely has a voice in policy. We have invited our germs to positions of authority and power, and our policies are totally infected with dangerous germs. We have a radical right wing ideologue heading the DOE, and David Coleman is invited to speak to superintendents so he can spread more of his testing germs. America, a plutocracy, has a whole cottage industry of billionaires and corporations trying to crush our democratic, transparent public system of education so they can get their hands on all the cash that they don’t even really need. It is twisted, anti-democratic and wrong as there is little authentic evidence in support of what they are doing. The only hope for our country is for angry voters to overturn the “Freedom Caucus, the right wing conservatives and the neoliberal Democrats. This is no easy task with Citizens United and stacks of dark money available in the shadows.
As far as Finland’s decline in “scores.” I predict that most of western Europe will see scores decline, and Germany will probably see the greatest decline in scores. Europe has been seen unparalleled refugee immigration, and, of course, their scores on the PISA will suffer as a result. I just hope that if our country moves up a few rungs on the testing ladder due to Europe’s decline that Trump and DeVos will declare a huge victory for their “reform” efforts. However, the reality is that the tests are not that important anyway.
Without community-based, democratic, transparent, nonprofit, unionized, traditional public schools, the arts, and play, all we have to do is look back at child labor in the industrial revolution to see what the oligarchs are bringing back for our children, but what jobs will there be for our children when pub-Ed for all children is gone — crime and/or prostitution that only rich/powerful men like Trump can afford to pay for?