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Surpassing Shanghai: Why Finland Works
There's no denying it: Finland is hot these days. No, I'm not talking about global climate change. I'm talking about education, where Finland has – to its surprise and everyone else's—been doing quite well for itself on international tests. What's more, they're doing well at educating their populace beyond what can be measured on tests. They've got everybody asking, “What the heck's going on in Finland?”
Unlike Shanghai, whose testing-oriented education approach goes back centuries and is now being questioned, Finland takes a very minimalistic approach to state-mandated testing. Random samples of sixth and ninth graders are assessed for transparency purposes, but those test results are not linked to consequences for schools, teachers, or students. Students take an end-of-high-school matriculation exam. And that's it.
Oh, there's plenty of other assessment going on in Finnish schools. Finnish teachers routinely engage in formative and diagnostic assessments of their students and go over the data they get to improve their own instruction and better respond to students' needs. They have a huge amount of autonomy over their classrooms and teach far fewer hours (about 600 hours a year) than their American counterparts (who average over 1,000 hours a year). The system works, however, because the teachers are very good and the entire system operates with an assumption that all students can perform at high levels given the right support.
How good are Finnish teachers? They're routinely drawn from the top 25% of high school graduates. In 2010, the country had 660 available seats for primary school education positions. Over 6,600 people applied for those positions. Can you imagine a nationwide acceptance rate of less than 10% for prospective elementary education majors?
Teaching is a high-prestige field in Finland, with decent pay, good working conditions, strong unions, and large amounts of control over curriculum and instruction. All teachers have a master's degree, and teacher preparation programs provide strong emphasis on content knowledge, content-specific pedagogy, and a year-long clinical experience in the classroom.
They are supported in schools by intervention specialists, a strong universal nutrition program, and access to medical, dental, and mental health care for all students. This makes schools one more point of delivery for a welfare state that is partially responsible for Finland's low poverty rate (and it should be noted that, even accounting for this lower poverty rate, Finland sees much less variation in academic performance linked to family income than the United States does).
Finland is a testament to a decades-long, largely apolitical focus on education. It shows the importance of respecting teachers, supporting students, and thinking beyond the test. We would do well to learn from their experience.
[This is the second post in a series on the findings of Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World's Leading Systems. Read part 3]
Posted in Education | Related Topics: European models Education Administration Student Assessment Teachers
15 Comments
January 13, 2012 at 4:46 pm
My take on it is that “methods” courses are precisely the opposite of content courses. The latter deal with substance, the former with form.
January 13, 2012 at 8:53 am
Note, the article says that teachers are prepared with strong content oriented pedagogy, as well as a year long practicum. My take on this is not that “methods” preparation for teachers needs to be abandoned, but that it needs to be strengthened.
January 12, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Nicely written and succinct. What a lot of food for thought!! Comments are, by and large, also very interesting, but the thought performance might well be impacted in a major way because there are no private schools is really intriguing.
January 12, 2012 at 3:59 pm
A few people have commented about the country’s homogeneity and that might somehow explain, in part, their quality education system - I’m not buying that.
A quick review of Finnish history reveals the country started the twentieth century as a relatively poor autonomous territory of Russia. And here we are about a hundred years later and they have a thriving democracy and a standard of living very comparable to the US. If it was just a matter of homogeneity, why hasn’t Mexico prospered in the same way?
I’d offer the simplistic notion that maybe it has something to do with the culture. Maybe the success of their schools is mostly the product of who they’re teaching - hard working and motivated kids.
I think much of the criticism of our schools is misguided. Unless we can improve the environment that our at-risk students come from, the schools will never cope.
January 12, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Isee the first comment is union bashing from a “I hate unions cuz I want my pay cut” person. In my son’s St Paul school, they fired 8 teachers last year with the HELP of the union. So what’s your point?
January 12, 2012 at 1:23 pm
From what I’ve read, Finland is much less homogeneous than it used to be, and the scores on international tests don’t seem to vary much with particular ethnic groups.
But the key here is that Finland takes its teachers from the top 25% of the students in the colleges and universities (rather than the bottom 25% as is the case with many states in this country) and they stress content, not methods, for their teachers.
We could vastly improve our schools if we could eliminate certification requirements, giving teachers greater autonomy in the classroom, and have the teachers learning as interns under master teachers for a year as the Finns do. Above all else, we need to pay them what they are worth. That’s a major key. Teachers in this country are grossly underpaid.
January 12, 2012 at 12:53 pm
I would tend to agree with Kim on the issue. Not having private schools would cause everybody to focus on public schools and quality of professionals teaching our kids.
January 12, 2012 at 10:35 am
As a current teacher I question two things.
1) Do the Finish mainstream their special ed. students? I’m thinking not. Therefore they have more resources to spend on other unimpaired students. Teachers energy and focus are more geared toward the average or high performing students.
2) If I recall the Finland is made up of a pretty homogeneous society. Where diversity means kids with black hair. We are a melting pot of languages and cultures. If you think this doesn’t make a difference, you are just kidding yourself.
January 12, 2012 at 10:14 am
The whole respect thing to me is the key. He same is true in a number of other European countries, Germany for example. When it works it creates a respect society wide for knowledge and study. But it also can contribute to a stultifying sense of conformity. In the US, I see two main obstacles to this kind of respect: First, our main national curriculum comes into conflict with some minority but influential religious beliefs. Second, our national tradition of do-it-yourself ingenuity chafes against granting any know-it-all license to act as master to a bunch of creative kids. I’m dubious you can apply the Finnish model as-is to such an ornery bunch as Americans are, on a public level, but perhaps this will serve as a model for creating communities of more formalized respect for learning. What would happen if a relatively closed community adapted it? And paid top 25% graduates a truly competitive wage, and demanded respect for teachers as a fundamental of staying in school?
January 12, 2012 at 9:42 am
As a former teacher, I love the emphasis on treating teaching as a desirable profession with the level of autonomy and, ah, professionalism, that you’d expect from a business executive. However, I’d have to ask - how much does Finland’s relative homogeneity have to do with this success as well?
January 12, 2012 at 9:35 am
Of course this works. Like the hours we put in at work, we put in more hours in education, and with less results. Of course it works to have people learn and think more. The puzzling question it is why, with all our resources, this country doesn’t get it.
Here being a teacher is not a status job.
January 12, 2012 at 8:59 am
Finland’s incredible academic success is due to many variables, but its apolitical focus on educational equity must be examined: There are NO private schools in Finland, thus all citizens want the best for all children.
Check out this Atlantic Magazine article: http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
January 12, 2012 at 8:58 am
Having had the pleasure of growing up in a community with lots of first generation and immigrant Finns where English was the second language for many of my classmates, I think Finland also works due to the use of the sauna. As a youth, our family would be invited to our Finnish neighbors for a sauna on Saturday nights where the men and then the women or vice versa would head to the sauna before everyone gathered afterward for lunch/food. Very much a social occasion. Many would then roll in the snow or jump into the lake immediately following a hot sauna which would, of course, eliminate the weak ones among us and assure that the remaining Finns and their neighbors were strong and hardy and good folk. Yessiree, Bob, it is the sauna that makes Finland good!
January 12, 2012 at 8:57 am
Well, we see where your bias is when you say “Strong Unions” What does that have to do with education. It is the Unions that are keeping us from removing teachers that have no business being in the class room. Get rid of them and our schools would get better.
Nothing worse then a teacher who knows less then the smartest kids in the school.
gary says:
January 16, 2012 at 2:09 pm
According to teachers who have visited Finland, at least two factors also have to be considered re. Finland’s educational success. One is that in Finland special ed students are segregated whereas in the US their inclusion is a goal. Also is Finland diversity is someone from Latvia. Finland is a relatively homogeneous society; this is not the case in the US where we are a heterogeneous society. There are differences between the two countries.