Finland and US Education Program Rankings

 Gather information and data from PISA website and compare the rankings of US and Finland. 

Why do you think Finland out-performed so many developed countries with such equitable and non-consequential guiding notion? Is there any ideas or rationale behind that speak to you? As an educational leader, what elements could and should our society adopt from Finland to improve our educational programs?



    While looking at the PISA website, the data is really interesting. In 2008/2009, Finland out performed by a landslide. During this timeframe, Finland invested in their teachers, and trusted them during the process. I also read some articles from the Smithsonian Magazine in regards to the education system. The first thing that I noticed was that it seemed that for the first 9 years a student is in school, they receive a individualized education plan. In addition to these plans, most teachers stay with the same group of students for around 3-5 years. They work with students with this attitude of "whatever it takes" for those years and rely on team collaboration. While we see these characteristics in some school districts in the United States, it is not found across the nation in totality. Most of these ideas and ways of approaching education is absolutely free. This means that these ideologies can be used in even the most undeveloped countries. One more interesting difference between the United States and Finland is that "there are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students' senior year in high school" (Hancock). Finland spends time teaching standards to individuals, not spending time teaching standardized tests to groups of students. The later is what we find mostly in the United States education system.

    Our education system should adopt so many elements from Finland's system. I personally believe in individualized plans for each student. I have seen tremendous success in students who have individualized plans. It's unfortunate that the system only provides these plans for students placed on I.E.P's or for those who are considered to be emerging bilinguals. I would love to work with groups of students for more than just 9 months. Each year, I seem to spend a month learning and accessing what standards my students have mastered, and which ones they truly need more help on. The last thing our society really should do is take the time spent discussing standardized testing pro's and con's and actually do something about our situation. Just this past week a group of teachers and  I were discussing the amount of standards we haven't reached with the students, and that state testing is still moving forward during this pandemic. One of them suggested to me to look at which math standards are weighted the most on the test and to just focus on those. As teachers, we want to say that teaching to the state test isn't true, but it absolutely is a reality.
    





Hancock, LynNell. “Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Sept. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/#:~:text=Ninety%2Dthree%20percent%20of%20Finns,student%20than%20the%20United%20States.


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