What makes Finland’s schools so successful?

by David Safier

We're obsessed with test scores, so Finland's top-in-the-world scores on international student tests should make us wonder, how do they do it? There are a wide range of possibilities, including the country's homogeneity (though apparently immigrants from Somalia, Iraq, etc. are doing pretty good as well). But when people complain about our low scores on international tests — which aren't nearly as terrible as claimed, not by a long shot — they tend to be quick with solutions, like: We need more testing, more charter and private schools and less union "interference" in education.

So let's see how Finland does it, according to a recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine.

• Teachers come from the top 10% of Finland's grads.
• The teachers union is very powerful.
• Students don't take standardized tests except for one at the end of their senior year.
• Students and schools aren't ranked against one another.
• Teachers "spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers."
• Students have lots of recess time.
• "It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. In addition, the state subsidizes parents, paying them around 150 euros per month for every child until he or she turns 17. Ninety-seven percent of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Stu­dent health care is free."

Here's an interesting note. Norway, Finland's neighbor, has an education system closer to ours than Finland's. Norway's scores on international tests are also closer to ours than to Finland's.

So when we hear about what we need to do to increase student achievement, how is it we don't hear much about the components of the "Finnish miracle"?