Thanks for the insight in your replies.

It's kinda nitpicky, but in all the stuff I've read about the Finnish system (including the article in The Atlantic), the director of public schools describes the system as equity, not equality. There is the big difference between them and the US system. The US system is totally based on equality, i.e. No Child Left Behind. It's a huge cultural difference to support equity, not equality.
>> ^CreamK:

As a Finnish citizen and being in one the first to gain from the new system, i can say without a doubt that the main point here is not the way we teach: it's about equality!! Every kid has equal opportunity to educate them self for FREE in a schooling system where every school has the same resources and same level of teachers. No matter what color you are, no matter if your parents are rich or poor, you get the same chance in life.
For me, it's been always granted: everyone gets educated, in fact, here there is no chance of not getting educated. Everybody have to get 9 years of basic education, it's in the law. As a parent, you have to extreme lenghts to not get your kid educated. Our "No kids left behind" really means what it says. Literacy is close to 100%, everyone knows how to do basic math, know about the history, geography, all the basic knowledge we humans need to survive.
As for the cost of this system, well, it's cheaper than what US have. By a large margin too. Even when our teachers are considered to be in the upper middle class, one meal per day for free for kids in school, no tuitions until University, all the reading material is free for the first 9 years, you get pens and pencils, rulers and paper, all for free... As for University tuitions, they are not in the range of tens of thousands, it's in the range of hundreds. So by the time a person has got 16 years of education, his student loans are about 10 000€, living and eating here is not free but nobodys forced to do two jobs to pay up for tuitions or parents getting a mortgage to give their younglings a fair chance.
Did i say it's cheaper than what US have? How about treating your citizens truly equal and giving everyone the chance of that American Dream?

I've studied the American education system and I am a product of it — not to mention my mother is an elementary school teacher. For all these things, you'll have reason to disregard my postulation. The problem isn't republican/democrat politics. The problem is politics altogether.

Parents want what's best for their children...hell even I want the best education for the children, and I'm not even a parent. However, because education is so important to us, we're not willing to gamble on a new system. This is where the politics come in...it's easy to sell the idea of more testing to "keep track" of our education goals. This, in-and-of-itself, is not illogical thinking. Collecting data points as often and accurately as possible is the best way to perform many kinds of experiments and getting the results. There's one problem with our current model, though: we're not getting results.

In my opinion, what the Khan Academy is trying to get going seems like our best bet if we want to keep our testing model and still modify our system for success.>> ^quantumushroom:

Why are these two smirking and proud?
Liberals run the show in US government schools, and conservative politicians are complicit, though without them the socialists would have already gone further.
Read all about it in this free-to-download e-book
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

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In reply to this comment by Barseps:
Glad to see that Finland ain't just all about Death Metal then :

*Doublepromote

Think you hit the nail on the head there man. They want consumers here in America not innovators. Innovators are dangerous they might change the system for the greater good.

>> ^Asmo:

>> ^Auger8:
Ya I totally agree here I'm from Texas and sports get all the attention whatever money is left over goes to standardized testing which is a crock in and of itself. And people wonder why un-employment is so high in America.
It's because public schools teach absolutely nothing of value to kids whatsoever!
>> ^Boise_Lib:
>> ^Porksandwich:

Like I've always felt in the US that the sports programs and all the cost associated with them plus the competition they spawn within the student body and against other schools is not beneficial. Basically you end up with a small group of players who get the school to bend over backwards to make things possible for them and everyone else loses out on it, in fact they often have to pay for tickets to even see the events their parents tax dollars make possible.

I agree.
We've made our school system (including college) a farm team for the NBA, NFL.


If you can dodge a ball, you can fix global warming?
Srsly, I don't see how any American (or indeed anyone else on the bloody planet) can look at a system like this and not want to use it, unless they have an agenda where keeping people poor and stupid and without opportunity is the goal... \= |

>> ^tymebendit:

i wish we can try the finnish system.
pick a state, or a city, and try it for 10-15 years.
everyone says out current system is terrible and not working.
how much worse could it be than our current one?
it will cost a bit more than our current system, but probably not that much more...


Actually, Finnish system is cheaper than US and by a large margin... Schools that don't have to make profit are much more cost efficient..

Glad to see that Finland ain't just all about Death Metal then

*Doublepromote

>> ^Auger8:

Ya I totally agree here I'm from Texas and sports get all the attention whatever money is left over goes to standardized testing which is a crock in and of itself. And people wonder why un-employment is so high in America.
It's because public schools teach absolutely nothing of value to kids whatsoever!
>> ^Boise_Lib:
>> ^Porksandwich:

Like I've always felt in the US that the sports programs and all the cost associated with them plus the competition they spawn within the student body and against other schools is not beneficial. Basically you end up with a small group of players who get the school to bend over backwards to make things possible for them and everyone else loses out on it, in fact they often have to pay for tickets to even see the events their parents tax dollars make possible.

I agree.
We've made our school system (including college) a farm team for the NBA, NFL.



If you can dodge a ball, you can fix global warming?

Srsly, I don't see how any American (or indeed anyone else on the bloody planet) can look at a system like this and not want to use it, unless they have an agenda where keeping people poor and stupid and without opportunity is the goal... \= |

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>> ^shole:

A Finn here too. \o/
There's a few tiny nitpicks in the video;
-There's no standardized testing at all.
Only test one could call standard would be the entry exams to universities, and other higher tier schools.
It's one exam (per field of study) you do and put a list of schools you want to get into, in order of preference.
Which brings me to an important omission;
-All universities and vocational schools and others are free.
It's kind of implied by 'public', but just to make it clear.
Pass the entry tests and you're good. (lower level graduation required)
This brings a lot of foreign students in too.
There's also a set amount of financial support in exchange for course credits, well enough for several degrees.
It's always mindblowing to think that families save up for tuition.


The matriculation examination at the end of gymnasium (i.e. the high school equivalent we have) is definitely a standardized test, since it's the same for every school and graded on a national level. Just because you can pick and choose the subjects you want to do doesn't change that fact.

>> ^jubuttib:

>> ^Deano:
Also Finland has the best racing drivers. Dunno why.

No endless straight roads, a lot of distance between places, lots of unpaved roads if you want to get a feel for rallying, pretty harsh requirements for a driving license, and a culture that's enthusiastic about racing.
Frankly what astonishes me is that for a population of under 6 million, Finns have won a medal or some sort of championship in just about everything at some point, and without relying on cultural diversity or immigrants (say what you will, in many sports like running there are huge racial differences). Everything on skis/snowboards, just about everything with an engine, most track and field events (though interestingly not sprint events, nothing below 400m at least), boats (F1 boats, sailing, rowing), shooting, many team sports (though we royally suck at soccer, still many individual Finns have ranked among the top players of the world, Jari Litmanen being a prime example), boxing, wrestling and other fight sports, weight lifting, the list goes on.
Must be something in the water of the so called "million lakes".


Damn vikings.

>> ^Auger8:

Ya I totally agree here I'm from Texas and sports get all the attention whatever money is left over goes to standardized testing which is a crock in and of itself. And people wonder why un-employment is so high in America.
It's because public schools teach absolutely nothing of value to kids whatsoever!
>> ^Boise_Lib:
>> ^Porksandwich:

Like I've always felt in the US that the sports programs and all the cost associated with them plus the competition they spawn within the student body and against other schools is not beneficial. Basically you end up with a small group of players who get the school to bend over backwards to make things possible for them and everyone else loses out on it, in fact they often have to pay for tickets to even see the events their parents tax dollars make possible.

I agree.
We've made our school system (including college) a farm team for the NBA, NFL.



But I'd argue, it's the system that those in power want and corporations want. Because it allows them the excuse to ship high school level jobs out to other countries. You see it all the time "We can't find any qualified candidates!" and then they need H1B visa restrictions lifted so they can bring people in or the job goes to another country after they milk the taxpayers for "tax breaks" on a building promising some jobs and conveniently forget to deliver on the jobs.

It's a systematic breakdown of all counters and checks to their ability to solely profit since no one can compete against them if they make consumers as dumb as possible in general, ship the jobs overseas, and bring all the products back at reduced prices until they kill any possible competition ....then jack the prices up. And now there's been a huge lull in jobs in manufacturing, etc...so the schools aren't preparing people for those jobs or training schools have went under and the general population education level has dropped to prevent it from easily being fixed.

And.......since they control lots of money (and therefore power), they can now keep it that way because they are "too big" to be told no. And now they are trying to privatize stuff to get even more cash out of people, and then they completely control the whole process and you will be just as educated as they'll let you be.

>> ^Deano:

Also Finland has the best racing drivers. Dunno why.


No endless straight roads, a lot of distance between places, lots of unpaved roads if you want to get a feel for rallying, pretty harsh requirements for a driving license, and a culture that's enthusiastic about racing.

Frankly what astonishes me is that for a population of under 6 million, Finns have won a medal or some sort of championship in just about everything at some point, and without relying on cultural diversity or immigrants (say what you will, in many sports like running there are huge racial differences). Everything on skis/snowboards, just about everything with an engine, most track and field events (though interestingly not sprint events, nothing below 400m at least), boats (F1 boats, sailing, rowing), shooting, many team sports (though we royally suck at soccer, still many individual Finns have ranked among the top players of the world, Jari Litmanen being a prime example), boxing, wrestling and other fight sports, weight lifting, the list goes on.

Must be something in the water of the so called "million lakes".

Ya I totally agree here I'm from Texas and sports get all the attention whatever money is left over goes to standardized testing which is a crock in and of itself. And people wonder why un-employment is so high in America.

It's because public schools teach absolutely nothing of value to kids whatsoever!

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^Porksandwich:

Like I've always felt in the US that the sports programs and all the cost associated with them plus the competition they spawn within the student body and against other schools is not beneficial. Basically you end up with a small group of players who get the school to bend over backwards to make things possible for them and everyone else loses out on it, in fact they often have to pay for tickets to even see the events their parents tax dollars make possible.

I agree.
We've made our school system (including college) a farm team for the NBA, NFL.

CreamK, I want to further my higher education, could you help me immigrate to Finland?