Discussion on:

It couldn't possibly work in the USA, right?

http://www.businessinsider.com/finlands-education-system-best-in-world-2012-11
Not focusing on measurements of results
No merit pay for teachers
100% public funding

So yeah, I predict at least one response of "That could never work here". But is it really so hard to believe that the usual school systems have it bass ackwards?

For Maxwell: Nobody is specifically saying that the public funding is why it works, if it was that easy, the Finns wouldn't hands down beat out Denmark and Norway.

People have been saying that about US schools for years.

Because any significant changes in our education system that would weed out bad teachers (as compared to Finland's top 10 percent criteria) would be blocked by the influence of the powerful teacher's union lobby.

I'm actually in favor of public funding for education, but not federal government control over that funding. I'm in favor of state funding and state control, which yields to local control to some degree, which yields to parental control to a further degree.

I think a problem we have in the USA is the notion that one size fits all. It might be more practical in a nation like Finland, with a population of only 5 million, but we have cities with populations that exceed that whole country. To think the same kinds of social structure would work in a more diverse, and much larger country with a population of over 300 million is naive.

While the problems and issues throughout a country like Finland might be similar, it's not that way at all in the United States. New York and Wyoming are as different as night and day. Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, the Dakotas, et al, spend much less money per student, and have much higher success rates than states like New York and New Jersey, or cities like Washington D.C. and Chicago.

Each of the 50 states should run their own education systems, and the federal government should just butt out. And if any of those 50 states (or even local school districts within the state) wants to try to follow what appears to be a very fine educational model in Finland, then so be it.

Norway does it like you do, more or less. Performance based.
And they're probably even more homogenic than the Finns are.
Yet they achieve comparable results to the USA.

So, this is less likely to be about how great the Finnish system is, as to be about how plumb useless the system that everybody else uses is.

In a nutshell, you don't have to copy the Finnish system, just realize that there's room for improvement and start experimenting.

"To think the same kinds of social structure would work in a more diverse, and much larger country with a population of over 300 million is naive."

Don't all students need the same core knowledge whether they live in WA or FL? Sure, there's no need for ME to teach TX history, but aren't math and Spanish and biology the same across state lines? Does chemistry work differently in WV than in NM, and is the need to teach it any more or less? Wouldn't it make hiring easier if a high school diploma represented the same skills and knowledge regardless of what state issued it?

I don't have kids, so I've never pursued this in detail. As a taxpayer, I've always wondered what made having 50 different state policies or even thousands of different local ones preferable to one set of standards nationwide.

Nothing in the above questions is intended to indicate I support or oppose any or all CURRENT federal education polices.

for when you want your child to learn Creationism instead of critical thinking...

With good instruction in the relevant biological facts that will certainly lead you to evolution of most species rather than their special creation, but I fear that most children are taught evolution with as little critical thinking as some are taught special creation. Logically, after all, those are not the only two options, but few seem to see that. Furthermore, the word "creation" has a theological meaning distinct from the biological meaning, but some people (some evolutionists and some special-creationists) blow up when you point that out. How do Finnish children do on these matters?

Some Bright Spark in the Southern States decides that the Civil War wasn't actually fought along the lines in Established History but was nothing more than the Poor North Suppressing the then Rich South and that they still are. They can push for a 2 State Solution where the South is another Country and they can return to their Tried & True Ways.

When you allow any Local Person/s to make decisions on the Education Syllabus you run the risk of their Pet Projects being pushed to the detriment of everything.

Even now there are many people who proudly boast that they distrust all Science but at the same time insist on using the products of that same science. What they are actually saying is that Science is great when it agrees with me and totally unacceptable and should be derided when I don't like what it's telling me. That is hardly rational or sustainable.

But it is Local Control.

Col

Philosophy, Logic, and Critical Thought need to be returned to the curriculum. They seem to be in short supply.

you can't help but notice that, at every turn, asking questions and applying critical thinking is both explicitly and implicitly discouraged.
So, no, children in normal schools are not instructed with as little critical thinking as are pupils in pro-"controversy" schools.

Why they need to dumb down their children if their beliefs are so worthwhile, I cannot understand.
But it is clear that they devote a lot of energy to killing off the naturally inquisitive curiosity of their children.

with what I said? Believe, having taught at a local community college, the lack of Critical Thinking, Logic, Philosophy, in earlier years, whether Christian schools or Public, is sorely lacking. Outside the totally **** pay, it was the bane of my teaching existence.

I agree with you that kids need actual training in those things, which is what it being on the curriculum means.
john.a.willis was stepping beside that point by suggesting that lack of critical thinking is somehow equally common to creationist and evolution training: the fallacy there being that an absence of training in something (it not being on the curriculum as its own thing) doesn't actually equal actively discouraging it.
So, pro-creationist curricula are actually harmful to critical thinking, whereas normal curricula just fail to be helpful to it.
I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.

does not appear to be available free on-line. I would like to have a look at it, but I do not want to fund Fundamentalists by buying a copy. Can you by any chance give us a link to an on-line copy?
My son teaches mathematics and astronomy in a Fundamentalist school and seems to be having some trouble with the astronomy part. Perhaps I should ask him if Science 4 (there are apparently also Science 5 and Science 6 available...) dumbens his (high-school level) pupils. He has told me he would probably get fired if he tried to advertise my book Albatross.

Like this sadly hilarious or hilariously sad one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/permalink/mo3ORR7E9OJAXMR/0890845697/ref=cm_ciu_images_pl_link

The thing about that language, apart from the outright fallacies, is that it speaks about hard facts as if they're nebulous mysterious things that nobody can really know for sure, in short, they clothe science in the cloth of theology.
People who've been processed in the ACE curriculum report the same thing.
Don't ask questions.
It's like that because it's like that.
Nobody knows why.
God moves in mysterious ways.


Not doing religion any favors either, is it?

are the one part of Science 4 that I had found. I agree that it's rubbish, but I'm not sure that it encourages non-thinking, nor yet that it's typical of the book. And I haven't looked in any other U.S. pre-college science texts for a while, so I suppose I can't compare. It teaches mistiness, though, rather than mysticism. William McNamara in The Human Adventure says that a prerequisite for mystical experience is to take a long, loving look at the real, so Science 4, not being reality-based (at least in this excerpt), will divert from mysticism. But there is no explicit reference to religious doctrine, so far as I can see. It's just a very poor piece of teaching.

Even there that is Rubbish and it only gets worse

No one has ever observed it or heard or felt it.

I'm not so sure about that sentence in the slightest bit Hold a 9 Volt Battery to your tongue and you feel it, touch a bare wire or connector that is live and you are most certainly going to feel it and as for measuring it well there are numenius ways to do this. The entire thing is rubbish sprouted by the Stupid to enhance their beliefs.

The reality however is that the same can be said for God and it's then accurate as it's not possible to measure hear or feel God as those are just the delusions of the foolish who claim to have done so.

Col

for when you want to be forced to have your child learn what other people consider....... (fill in the blank).

"He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine!"
- Jonathan Edwards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQe8Mk19_s4

You idiots who want the government to run your life are ..... well, you're just that - idiots. And when you use that same government to run other people's lives, you're tyrants.

If you have Locals running the schools you'll get Idiots who believe that the American Civil War was an attempt by the North to Suppress the South and steal their Funds as the South at the time was rich and the North Poor.

That's just one example of how you break up a country into several smaller states who can do nothing to protect themselves.

Or the idiot who believes that all Federal Government Assets in their state belongs to that state so they press the Education System to teach that in the warped way that True Believers do and eventually lead to the citizens of the State supporting seizing all Federal Government Property in that State to use themselves. Not a problem if it's the IRS Offices but it''s a completely different Kettle of Fish when it happens to be a Major Air-force/Navy Base or an ICBM Silo.

Personally I believe that all Government Assets are Mine as I'm a Tax Payer and it's My Taxes which paid for all that infrastructure so I should have complete control over it and how it is used. I want to fire that ICBM off to wipe the Federal Government off the Face of the Planet and then setup house in the hole in the ground which is perfect for my needs.

No one could possibly support those kind of beliefs as they are the Stupid Ramblings of a Mentally Deranged Individual who needs Medical Attention for their Mental Disorder but because they don't have any Medical Insurance remain Untreated.

Though I should add You needs Locals to run the schools to suit their Local Conditions within Limits but you need a Federally Set Syllabus that everyone is taught or as an example you have Junk Science taught as Science and every student isn't actually educated.

It really doesn't matter what the syllabus is provided that everyone gets taught the same thing and has a basic Education. What they do latter is up to them and while it is shaped by their early education it shouldn't prevent them from questioning that early education.

Col

...the fluckhead whose only credentials is living near me is not the default winner.
After all, the faceless technocrat doesn't necessarily have it in for me specifically

Max complains on the one hand about the country going downhill, while simultaneously railing against any government actions intended to change that situation.

Max, you need to reconcile your anti-government beliefs with the idea that for this country to have a sustainable future, government has to set the standards in some areas, education being one of them. If you can't do that, you're part of the problem.

But you are being pretty dense, in my opinion. You presuppose government must be in control of every problem. How about this, dude? Government IS THE PROBLEM.

And before you go off and start acting dense again, or spouting something stupid or disingenuous again, I'm referring to the federal government.

Agree with me or not, I'm pretty consistent. You're becoming either too blind or too disagreeable (for its own sake) to realize it. Either way, you really are coming across as sounding foolish to me.

Hypocracy would be "governing too little"

Consistently absolutist. And consistently ignoring that I've already said I believe government is doing some things wrong and doing other things it shouldn't be doing at all. But as those don't fit your presuppositions, they can be ignored, as can any facts that don't fit.

Your statement–Government is the problem–implies you believe everything wrong in the US today is because of the federal government. That conclusion is no less silly than my allegedly concluding government needs to be in control of everything. (At least you finally qualified your blanket statement, wrong though it may be, to only apply at the federal level.)

My question is, are we a nation of 50 states? Or are we 50 states pretending to be a nation? While I prefer the former, it would seem you prefer the latter.

What's the difference between having other people at the state level consider what a child learns, vs. other people at a national level deciding? Why is it tyranny if the feds set the standards but not if a state does it? It's still government making the call. What makes multiple state-created curriculums superior to a federal one? If I'm an employer or college admissions office in the FL panhandle, why should I have to juggle the differing minimum standards when I receive applications from FL, GA, and AL graduates?

And could you omit the name calling?

Though I'll admit to not understanding it either but as an example

Mitt's Health Care Package introduced when he was Governor = Good

Obama Health Care package which is exactly the same except for the fact that it's Nation Wide not State Wide = Bad.

I never understood that one either particularly when the guy who introduced it at the State Level was decrying it at the National Level.

Seemed to me more than a bit Hypocritical but maybe that's just me.

Col

To put it a little indelicately, in the South, they tend to want to bring them up stupid. In Northern small towns, the same. In inner city schools, where the urban poor concentrate, the schools don't even try, and if they do, the class identification of the kids pretty much spoils the effort. Northern and Western suburban schools put more faith in kids' ability to learn, and the parents as a group tend to be more prosperous and learning-oriented, and the public schools crank out a richer mix of better-educated and semi-educated kids.

I don't speak out of pure prejudice; I've put my kids through a lot of schools. The best public schools were in suburban New Jersey; the one in a Yankee small town in Western New York state was poor; the public school in Pittsburgh was crap, and we were able to pick one of the best among the magnet schools. (Ansu: in troubled school districts, a "magnet" school is one that features programs and supposed teaching rigor, so that more white kids will be drawn to it. There's a faith among teachers that if you get a good racial mix, i.e. more whites than minorities, it will raise all students' performance.)

We've also had experience with four private schools, two of them Catholic. You can graduate pretty dumb out of Catholic schools, but it is a more educationally supportive environment, and if home life motivates a kid to respect intellect and work hard, the school won't destroy that child. That's better than you can say of the urban and small town public schools that were our alternatives. One of our girls came out of Catholic high school and went on to Bryn Mawr, and is now making more money than I do. She works hard, concentrates hard, and that made all the difference.

We've also spent an awful lot of money on private schools. Our fourth child was close to genius, with a Herculean work ethic, and an almost disturbing ability to compartmentalize and focus. No public school in the city of Pittsburgh would have kept him occupied; he would not have developed into what he is, without challenges and expectations from his school. His mother and father challenged him more and expected more than the school did. His high school years cost us about $85,000, but the price has gone up. He was worth the investment. He's still costing a lot: college, at an elite Philadelphia area school, Haverford, is $55,000 a year. This is all having a discouraging effect on my retirement plans.

My wife teaches at a New York public comprehensive college. (A comprehensive teaches a broad range of majors.) Her college is designed to educate the state's B and C+ students. Twenty-five years ago, when she started, a lot of them were amazingly naive and even dumb, but they've gotten much worse. It can't be blamed on minorities, either; of the 5000 students, only a couple hundred are black or Hispanic.

If she was teaching at Forida State, though, she'd be stuck with a much lower grade of humanity. Like I say, the public in the deep South doesn't have the same esteem for education, or comfort for kids who grow up smarter than their parents, or for the property taxes that would support a good school environment.

but to me that sounds like a position in favor of national standards, in favor of mandating that all states have the same goals. Those goals should be set more in line with the top-performing states, not lowered just so we can say all states are equal.

Not giving teachers perverse incentives is probably the biggest improvement to make in most places.
In many places, C students are left to themselves because they don't massively impact a teacher's pay. So, some work will be done to keep the flunkable students from flunking (but only if that's a pay parameter!), and since the Ds and Cs won't be scrutinized intensively, they'll be left to their own devices, and most effort is put into crowding people from B to A.
It all depends on the specifics of the pay parameters of course, but all merit pay for teachers will provide perverse incentives to "work the system".

Teachers need to have as their sole goal to help each pupil achieve as much as they can. Some will need to be held by the hand as they try to get their meager natural gifts to extend to the curriculum, some need social services and some need more challenges, but teachers shouldn't be prioritizing those tasks according to how much they will get paid back for their efforts.

love to teach, love their students, and want them all to succeed.

The perverse incentives are in the system: increased class sizes, standardized testing as part of teacher evaluations, lack of parental support, and so on.

I don't have faith in Washington-based educator/bureaucrats to come up with common standards that would actually be good for schools, students, and the society they serve. NCLB was the latest big idea, and it gradually disintegrated into a plan for continuous improvement of schools through student testing, where different categories of students were hypothesized, and schools that were shown by testing to have "failed" one or another category of kid would be tasked to improve instruction against that category, enough to move that category's test scores positively year over year, or suffer the loss of federal funds. And, oh yeah, each state got to devise its own tests, since education was so different between states, so you couldn't really use the tests to see if one part of the country is doing a better job. It could do some good if it were done right, but is wasn't, and it doesn't.

I believe that most teachers are sincerely interested in their students' outcomes, and the ambition to do good is why they got into their line of work. Like most bureaucracies that are governed by an electoral process, calming the most dissatified parts of the electorate has become the objective of the schools. Quality of instruction, which educational professionals ought to be in the best position to judge, is not an issue on the ballot. Program design and curriculum choice ought to be handled at the level of teachers and principals, because schools and student bodies all differ, and they are the ones whose judgement is most likely to be best.

I don't know how you implement a good policy. You certainly don't look to the teachers' union, the AFT. Their leadership has turned into a self-dealing syndicate, which protects teacher interests and never looks critically at its own profession.

Where the Individual areas get to control their own systems and then have the Basks wanting to succeed for years and engage in Terror Campaigns to get their stated goals?

As things currently stand in Spain if not jumped on in a big way they will dissolve into a bunch of individual states unallined with anything and way too small to defend themselves from outside aggression.

This is a country that was once upon a time one of the Naval Super Powers so I'm assuming that this is how you would prefer to see the USA end up?

I really don't think so either.

Col

50+ sets of state standards are automatically superior. Do you have more faith in state level educators / bureaurcrats being able to come up with good standards?

I agree that program design should be handled locally; principals and teachers know best where each kid is strong or weak. But as to what goals those kids should be trying to achieve?

and Federal Standards are two different things. I see no reason why there can't be a set of standards that applies equally across states, without Federal interference.

The federal government contributes little to local education. School boards are so strapped for money, and so averse to raising taxes, that the pittance the feds shell out looks irresistable, and they try to meet federal requirements to receive it. The federal standards don't cover curriculum, except to require that U. S. history be taught for at least some years.

State and local control are the norm, with non-professionals running local school boards. It is a system for paying for education, not for ensuring quality education. My experience, with four kids of my own, and lots of moving around, is that lots of schools are awful, and that bad education is more the norm than good. See my reply to Ansu for an elaboration on that.

I've seen a couple sides of education in a great plains state, by the way. When I went to public school in Minneapolis, it was great. Some years later, I spent a few months in Wadena, Minnesota, a small farming community. It was awful, and I think it was that way because the local school authorities didn't know good from bad, and wouldn't care if they did (one unfortunate aspect of local control.) After that, I finished high school in Craig, Colorado, which was just fair, but not poor.

The newest problem is No Child Left Behind, which tries to identify "failing schools" through mass testing of students. Failing schools, if they don't address their problems (i.e., get the kids to score higher on the tests) will be cut off from federal funds. This is a big dumb bureaucratic nightmare that seethes with unintended consequences. Other people seem convinced that bad schools are caused by bad teachers, and that what we really need to do is fire enough bad ones, and what remains will deliver us to paradise. None of these schemes address the fact that the schools are rotten all over the place, and that they are a system designed to produce poor results.

that all students can learn to the same level at the same rate.

On the other hand, it was the perfect vehicle to set national educational standards and it failed miserably at that.

is that all parents are equally concerned with their child's education. They have the kid more than the teachers do. If they don't shive a git, then the neither will Dick and Jane.

Kids spend more time away from parents than with them.
Unless you count the time they're sleeping, which is silly.
If we're talking waking, influencing time, teachers win by a large margin.

Of course parents can have an impact on the attitudes of their kids, but it's not necessarily as big as you'd imagine.

How much do the parents value education and how do they show it? Going out of their way to attend open houses and communicating with the teacher at times other than when the kid is in trouble sends a much different message than constantly complaining about the quality of the schools. In the latter case, the kids have probably been hearing it all their lives (or at least since they started school) and have internalized the complaint in the attitude "Why should I pay attention, the schools stink anyway?"

There are other nonverbal messages, as well. When parents ask "Is your homework done?" and accept the automatic "Yes" it sends a much different message than the response "Show me your completed homework".

Some people just don't have the education to care about education... who said vicious circle?

Class identity is still a big thing in this country. Working class kids learn to ignore ways and knowledge that are too fancy for them; poor kids learn to demonstrate that they don't have to do anything that their social betters expect of them, and that they can survive a lifetime of crap and disappointment and underachievement, and still get along just fine, on their own terms. We like to believe in this country that anybody can do anything, but once you've learned where you belong, trying to make yourself a success story seems like a betrayal of your friends and your soul. Becoming middle class (or rich) is for a lot of people a trip into a different country, wearing somebody else's skin.

And the kids get that crap at home, in school, and on the news. When they hear the code words (those people, inner-city families, welfare generation, rural poor, etc.), they know exactly who is being talked about and where they stand.

We are told that pupils are not measured in their first 6 years, and also that 30% need extra help and get it. Without measurement, how is it known which pupils need extra help?