Several readers of the blog have discussed visiting Finnish schools.
I offered to put them in touch with a knowledgeable person.
You can contact William Doyle, an author who has spent a year in Finland on a Fulbright Fellowship. His own child attended Finnish schools.
He has kindly offered to communicate with anyone interested in planning a trip.
Write him at billdoyleus@gmail.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not only Finland – we can learn from many countries and should. The profit influenced feedback loop of US education must be broken. A hard look at pushing technology must be taken. A profession that once was more high touch is now largely replaced with high tech – low touch. Bring back hand written report cards signed by parents in the lower grades – or better yet NO report cards with a conference with parents – bring back pencil and paper testing in the lowest grades NOT computer testing – “knowing driven instruction” as opposed to “data driven instruction” – turn in a hand written and illustrated paper and not a largely copied and pasted affair – debate if Google classroom is really good for students or does it just make the teacher’s job easier? The list goes on – administrative meetings should debate if tech really is cost effective? I am not opposed to tech as such – I am opposed to tech where it is not strengthening students. Other countries have been more careful with tech especially in elementary grade levels as many of them are more people centered – not profit centered as the US, So be smarter than any of any of the tech company using the word “smart” in their name or products!!
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I did not want to sound ungrateful or put down Finland in any way at all – I apologize for my post – I would love to visit Finland and learn more!! I did hear at one point they have decided to introduce computers and keyboards at a much earlier age and was concerned about that decision.
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Thank you, Diane.
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Finland has some terrific ideas, that could be emulated here in the USA. Germany also has some excellent programs underway. I especially admire their apprenticeship programs for Vo-Tech students. I think the German apprenticeship program needs to be imported here!
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The Finns often remind us that their best education ideas were made in the USA and exported.
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the hope of the group I’m working with is to create a “bottom-up” alternatives a counter to what the “education reform” neoliberals are peddling. It will be interesting to see if it happens.
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The Total Quality Management (TQM) which has made Japan the envy of the world, (in manufacturing), was pioneered by W. Edwards Deming (an American), and imported into Japan. The USA has pioneered in many fields, including education.
“You can always tell a pioneer. They have arrows in their backs”- Author Unknown.
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I recommend Andrea Gabor’s excellent book about Deming: “The Man Who Invented Quality.”
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Home schooling is illegal in Germany and does not even exist as a thing in Finland. While we are adopting Finnish or German educational practices (plus free university education), let’s also import universal health care, works councils and their strong unionism.
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Every educator in Finland belongs to the same Union. Both teachers and principals.
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Fortunately, in the USA, the government does not have “dibs” on children’s minds. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925). The unanimous decision of the court, was on the side of freedom of choice. see
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/268us510
“The unanimous Court held that “the fundamental liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.”
This unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, is the “bedrock” of the home-school movement in the USA.
I lived in Germany for two years. There are many good ideas in European education, that could be adopted here in the USA.
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I have a great deal of admiration for Finland. Finland is one of the very few nations, to ever attempt to repay loans made to them by the USA. Of course, there are many fine concepts and ideas in Finnish public education that the USA can and should emulate.
Nevertheless, Finland is a socialist, Scandinavian nation, and not all of their programs should ever be imported into the USA. Finland does not have any serious problem with illegal immigrants. The nation endures a sky-high rate of taxation, to pay for all of their socialist programs. The nation does not have to spend an appreciable amount of GDP on defense. And on and on.
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Charles ” The nation endures a sky-high rate of taxation, to pay for all of their socialist programs. ”
What’s your point, Charles? That because of high progressive taxes, the Finn 1% cannot develop, cannot take over the country? Are you trying to say that a high percentage of the Finns live in poverty, can barely make ends meet?
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Q What’s your point, Charles? That because of high progressive taxes, the Finn 1% cannot develop, cannot take over the country? Are you trying to say that a high percentage of the Finns live in poverty, can barely make ends meet? END Q
@mate: The point I am making, is very simple. Finland is a socialist, Scandinavian country. Their taxes (as a percentage of GDP) are very high, and everybody pays, including wealthier Finns.
Read my posts carefully: I am making no reference to wealthy Finns, and whether or not, they can take over their nation. I am making no reference to how many Finns live in poverty.
The point I am asserting: The system that the Finns have developed seems to work well for the Finns. This does NOT necessarily mean that their programs and socialism can be imported into the USA. Their near-confiscatory levels of taxation would not be tolerated here.
Of course, some of their educational philosophies and concepts deserve a very close look. The Germans have some fine ideas. The Japanese have some fine ideas. If some of their concepts can be adopted here in the USA, then terrific.
I have often advocated for the USA to adopt the German apprenticeship programs, which work very well in the skilled trades.
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Charles is right about this. The Finns pay high taxes. They have very low poverty. They want everyone to share the nation’s prosperity.
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Charles also claims that, unlike in other countries, high taxes wouldn’t reduce or even eliminate poverty in our very special country.
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“Their near-confiscatory levels of taxation would not be tolerated here.”
As I said, yeah, this country is different, and hence control of guns, taxes and the 1% wouldn’t work, since they wouldn’t have the same effect as in other places: no poverty, no third world murder rate. No, nothing can change the rule of the 1% here, because this place is different.
See, Charles, I am not arguing with you.
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Q Charles also claims that, unlike in other countries, high taxes wouldn’t reduce or even eliminate poverty in our very special country. END Q
Where did I claim this? I have made no such assertion.
Nevertheless, I do have an appreciation for history. The “war on poverty” started in the mid 1960s was an attempt by government to alleviate poverty through government spending (and the required taxation) to facilitate the programs.
After 50+ years, and some $20 Trillion in expenditures, there are more people in poverty now, than before the “war” started. The black family in the USA is destroyed (78% of black children, born to unmarried females).
If a government program to tax people, and then spend it on poverty programs worked, I believe that we would have seen it by now.
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The root of the problem is not every failure to spend but our failure to levy higher taxes on the 1%
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“Where did I claim this? I have made no such assertion.”
When it was claimed that higher tax rates in Finland has helped eliminating poverty, you replied “it wouldn’t work” here in the US.
The experiment we need to conduct is: increase the tax rate ceiling to 80%, make healthcare and higher ed free, and see how much of poverty would get eliminated, say, 20 years from now.
Not only Western European countries have conducted this experiment with success but we now have economical data and simple formula supporting the benefits of high interest rates in eliminating the divergence between the 1% and 99% by making the economy work for the 99% and not for the 1%.
If Europe, the central place for WWII, could do it, so can we where we haven’t had war on our land for 150 years.
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We sure can learn from other countries.
View at Medium.com
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The town I live in was devastated by neoliberal capitalism– Wall Street came in and in the name of the bottom line vacuumed out most of its capital base (about three-quarters of the town’s annual payroll, which used to be in hundreds of millions). I like to think we are not afraid of socialism. We hope that re-introducing American innovations adopted by the Finns will save us from the reforms which the “reform” industry will be selling to our state legislature.
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“I like to think we are not afraid of socialism. ”
Why is this “socialism” a scary word? What’s wrong with the Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Austria, etc? That their 1% is not getting ever more powerful at the expense of the middle class? That their economy is the people’s economy, not the 1%’s?
People here in the South always tell me “Socialism is terrible. Just look at the economy of these socialist countries in Europe.” They of course have never visitied any of these countries and they get their info from Fox.
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FDR’s success in dealing with the Depression motivated our 1% to re-establish their hegemony, so they doubled down on the anti-labor, anti-equity propaganda even during WWII. As school children, we were fed messages about the evils of socialism. So, the public is predisposed, Måté, to be prejudiced against it. We are too indolent to think for ourselves about it and too distracted by the enjoyment of our appliances to want to see a bigger picture. You might as well save your breath on the topic.
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