A big part of why Finland does well is probably demographics -- it is fairly homogeneous, white, and affluent. Outside the Boston public schools, the same could be said of Massachusetts -- and "TIMSS Results Place Massachusetts Among World Leaders in Math and Science"
http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=4457 .
I don't want to make this into something it's not, but I don't think there was a need to put white in there at all. I do agree in the content by which I think you meant it, that there is basically one culture, making it easier to teach to the masses. But the same can be said for schools in Japan (non-white), where obviously there's a higher degree of education than in the US. When there are many different cultures in the classroom, it can be difficult to do so (and/or the way children are raised amongs those cultures varies as well); however, I feel that alone is still an excuse to accept less than the best for US Education...
As a mother of biracial children and wife of an extremely bright black man (he does not like the label African American - he is American), I took offense a little...
Carry on.
