Four Reasons Finland’s Schools are Better Than Ours

Education

America's latest school report card jump-started yet another wave of panic that our students will never be able to compete on the world stage.The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s release of its annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, an international comparison of educational performance, placed U.S. kids in the incredibly average group. But aside from the fear that our children won’t one day earn enough to prop up our Social Security/Medicare entitlements, the report wasn’t quite a death knell for the public school system.

America’s kids didn’t flunk. Where countries like England, France and Sweden are mired in mediocrity with no signs of improvement, the U.S. posted modest gains. What’s most interesting about the PISA report, and important for the public school reformers here to focus on, is Finland.

Once again, Finnish students topped the PISA report card, but what makes this information worth scrutinizing is that 25 years ago Finland’s school system sat in the same predicament that public schools in the U.S. find themselves now. The Finns scored below average in math and science and had alarming achievement gaps between urban and affluent schools versus poor and rural schools.

So what did the Finns do? Continue reading here

.