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| - Finland (also known as ) File:Flag of Finland.svg, with its high-achieving public schools, has been held up as a standard for the US as we slog down the path of education reform. However, are there things we can’t learn from Finland’s model? Pasi Sahlberg , author of Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland ?, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post on what lessons Finland is unable to teach the US. Excerpts from his article are below. […] For more, please see http://coreeducationllc.com/blog2/what-the-u-s-cant-learn-from-finland/
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| - Finland (also known as ) File:Flag of Finland.svg, with its high-achieving public schools, has been held up as a standard for the US as we slog down the path of education reform. However, are there things we can’t learn from Finland’s model? Pasi Sahlberg , author of Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland ?, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post on what lessons Finland is unable to teach the US. Excerpts from his article are below. “During the last decade, Finland has become the go-to place for education reformers all around the world. The main reason is its success in the international survey comparing 15-year-olds in reading, math and science learning called PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). Since that OECD report, I have been privileged to meet legislators, administrators, teachers, and parents here in the United States. Anywhere I go, people are eager to hear about Finnish education and its accomplishments. Especially, they want to know what they can learn from it. What I have to say, however, is not always what they want to hear. While it is true that we can certainly learn from foreign systems and use them as backdrops for better understanding of our own, we cannot simply replicate them. What, then, can’t the United States learn from Finland? First of all, although Finland can show the United States what equal opportunity looks like, Americans cannot achieve equity without first implementing fundamental changes in their school system. The following three issues require particular attention.
* Funding of schools: Finnish schools are funded based on a formula guaranteeing equal allocation of resources to each school regardless of location or wealth of its community.
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* Well-being of children: All children in Finland have, by law, access to childcare, comprehensive health care, and pre-school in their own communities. Every school must have a welfare team to advance child happiness in school.
* Education as a human right: All education from preschool to university is free of charge for anybody living in Finland. This makes higher education affordable and accessible for all. As long as these conditions don’t exist, the Finnish equality-based model bears little relevance in the United States. Second, school autonomy and teacher professionalism are often mentioned as the dominant factors explaining strong educational performance in Finland. The school is the main author of curricula. And the teacher is the sole authority monitoring the progress of students. In Finland, there is a strong sense of trust in schools and teachers to carry out these responsibilities. There is no external inspection of schools or standardized testing of all pupils in Finland. For our national analysis of educational performance, we rely on testing only a small sample of students. The United States really cannot leave curriculum design and student assessment in the hands of schools and teachers unless there is similar public confidence in schools and teachers. To get there, a more coherent national system of teacher education is one major step. […] Teaching in Finland is, in fact, such a desired profession that the University of Helsinki , where I teach part-time, received 2,300 applicants this spring for 120 spots in its primary school teacher education program. In this teacher education program and the seven others, teachers are prepared to design their own curricula, assess their own pupils’ progress, and continuously improve their own teaching and their school. Until the ((United States}} has improved its teacher education, its teachers cannot enjoy similar prestige, public confidence and autonomy. For more, please see http://coreeducationllc.com/blog2/what-the-u-s-cant-learn-from-finland/
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