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So what has happened since is that teaching has become the most highly esteemed profession. Not the highest paid, but the most highly esteemed. Only one out of every 10 people who apply to become teachers will ultimately make it to the classroom. The consequence has been that Finland's performance on international assessments, called PISA, have consistently outranked every other western country, and really there are only a handful of eastern countries that are educating with the same results.
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That's absolutely right. There is no domestic testing except a very quiet auditing program to test demographic samples of kids; not for accountability, not for public consumption, and not for comparison across schools.
<p>Finland is also a very small country. What you say is very true, and impressive, on its own. It is in no way, however, a model or a point of comparison for the American public school system. </p>
<p>Not to mention a study was completed a few years ago that concluded that the American system was among the best in the world with schools in middle to high income (50k +) neighborhoods.</p>
<p>World’s education leader is not only the one that gives the highest average quality of education but also that which gives a large number of students such an education; a function of both average quality and absolute value.</p>
<p>Well, my belief is that if tests are used as the main standard to gauge a student’s “success” then all the other aspects of education would be sacrificed to bring the test scores up.</p>
<p>Finland is like many other Asian countries, in that the population is very homogenuous. You really can’t compare Finland to the US because our diversity brings a whole different element to the learning. Language isn’t an issue. Traditions aren’t. People rarely move to different communities. All these factors play a huge role in the student’s readiness to learn.</p>
<p>I’d say you are, in large part, correct that at all but the wealthy public institutions and prep schools, the focus would be towards higher test scores. One could also argue, however, that this is also reflective of the fact that these days education is being seen more and more as a means toward an end as opposed to an end in and of itself.</p>
<p>Tests are, damned if I say it, an excellent way to guage the achievment of a student body. That being said, I would argue that a test similar to the ACT would be a much better guage of this. Having taken both tests (though doing better on the SAT) I’d think certain aspects of the SAT just come with long-term, nurturing (read: rich), environments.</p>
<p>Obviously mass cheating like that in Georgia need to be cut, and the testing has to be more comprehensive. However, it is the only way a country like America can truly benchmark its students. We sure as hell can’t get a “quit auditing program” for every public high school in this country…</p>
I feel it an immense luxury I have had to have teachers (my parents foremost) that nurtured this imagination rather than placing value on tests. I also haveabout seven kids in most of my classes. And while I am confident that teachers can bring about such imagination in classes of more than 30 (my favorite teacher, hons. 9th grade english inspired me to no end in a class of almost 40), they are few and far in between, as are schools that can afford to keep class sizes so small.</p>
<p>There is a tradeoff between imagination and learning. America has thrived because it let the gifted fly. I would advocate that much stronger TAG/AIG/ELP/etc. programs are implemented in hopes of the imagination you mention.</p>
<p>@lima beans: How can you explain that a 1st grade math education in South Korea has had me set until around 4th grade in America? I am talking about middle upper class school too. So when I moved to America after 1st grade, I did not learn anything new until around 4rth grade. I had already learned basic operations, fractions, exponents and some other stuff in Korea. The curriculum was more rigorous. Oh and keep in mid, I went to school on Saturdays. Effectively adding 4 extra hours every week.</p>
<p>Be angry at that school, but you can’t blame a whole country. And did you really learn things like reducing a fractions and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators in 1st grade? Did that school not have a T&G program? And do you think your learning is only happening in the 6 1/2 hours you’re in school?</p>
<p>Perhaps, but thinking about it, the only reason I got into T&G in America was due to math. I got in the first year I became eligible. So that was after I got of the English learner group, but my math test scores were towards the 90%+. Anyways, perhaps, I was just a more curious kid. Perhaps it was the books I was provided by my parents to read. But I do clearly remember being able to do all that.</p>
<p>My parents sat with me and made sure I knew my stuff. By the time I went to first grade the basic curriculum was way to easy. I attended a lower-middle class school that had lots of kids on free lunches. Still, they made it possible for me to sit and basically have private classes with the talented/gifted teacher. By the time I got to 4th grade myself and a friend needed more than just the gifted program, so we were given a class with just us, learning all kinds of new things that most kids didn’t learn for years later.</p>
<p>The public school system approached me about skipping a grade, and insisted it would be better that I did. After I did, the school devoted as much as possible to make sure it worked out.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to say, I guess, is your milage may vary. That the American system is the best of all possible situations. Call me panglossian, but I don’t think a diverse country like America, is really behind Korea–it’s a small country and it is homogeneous.</p>
<p>OP, there were two paragraphs on the same issue … you left the most important out. Although it is not entirely true that all teachers obtained master’s degrees, only teachers with a master’s degree in the area they plan to teach are allowed to teach above the elementary level. </p>
<p>While we cannot import many educational policies from Finland, starting to demand a better preparation and better qualifications from our K-12 teachers should be the highest item on our list.</p>
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<p>A point I raised in a recent thread about teachers.</p>
<p>I don’t with me, at the moment. A friend showed me a whileago, and I might have it on my desktop at home. That being said, for sake of non-scientific argument, just look at high income public schools. They have low student faculty ratios, excellent teachers, and a strong student body.</p>
<p>For some quasi-scientific correlation, look at the SAT as income increases. The students at the top income bracket are more than a full standard deviation from those earning the median income! </p>
<p>I know that’s not proof, but just a simple thought experiment in lieu of immediate proof.</p>