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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 3,298
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Schools in most (all?) other OECD countries teach to the test. But the tests are very different.
For example, in Ireland, everyone know that the test would have questions from Jane Eyre and A Tale of Two Cities, so the schools taught Jane Eyre and A Tale of Two Cities. This was done by reading the books, writing papers about them, and talking about them. It was not done by reading excerpts, constructing paragraphs (11 sentences each!), and choosing the best answer about Mr. Rochester's reaction to his house burning down. Etc. Their tests have few multiple choice questions (if any), but there are essay questions about the books and long-answer problems in math/science. Questions generally take 10-20 minutes to answer.
But in this country, students have less than a minute per question. Everything is superficial. Read a passage and pick the best answer. What is the slope of the line? So the teaching becomes superficial, even though the deeper approach would almost certainly raise test scores.
The superficiality of our education system is destroying us. It's like the people in charge don't know about the general principles of different subjects and how concepts fit together.
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Joined: Nov 2011
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Do we have anyone here that has a good understanding of the educational systems that do well either in Europe (Finland / Netherlands), or Asia (Korea, Taiwan or Japan)?
My very limited understanding is that the European model is quite different from the Asian model. Currently the Asian model is doing better on the PISA rankings, for what that is worth.
Last edited by mithawk; 02/13/14 03:13 PM. Reason: First sentence was clumsy
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Joined: Jul 2012
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I've read extensively on Finland's school system. Their model is simple: Teachers are highly skilled professionals and are fully supported in that position.
It all ripples from there.
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Joined: Sep 2007
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I know about Ireland (undergrad and grad student there for 5 years or so, friends with sibs in school) and Switzerland (grad student there; sister-in-law is a teacher there). Are you specifically interested in Finland and the Netherlands?
ETA to what ZenScanner wrote: the same is true in Ireland and Switzerland. My SIL is very smart and very dedicated and very good at her job. She's strongly supported by her bosses.
Ireland has a national curriculum and all schools get equal financial support. Switzerland's cantons set their own curricula, but everyone takes the same test at the end of high school. All schools get equal financial support.
ETA to ETA: Very few kids go to private school in Switzerland. Well, very few kids whose parents also live in Switzerland.
Last edited by Val; 02/13/14 03:02 PM.
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Finland's PISA scores have been falling: http://www.economist.com/news/inter...star-latest-pisa-tests-focusing-interestFinn-ished The fall of a former Nordic education star in the latest PISA tests is focusing interest on the tougher Asian model instead The Economist Dec 7th 2013 | From the print edition WHEN the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests to focus on maths results were published a decade ago, Finland’s blue-cross flag fluttered near the top of the rankings. Its pupils excelled at numeracy, and topped the table in science and reading. Education reformers found the prospect of non-selective, high-achieving and low-stress education bewitching.
Every three years since then, 15-year-olds have sat PISA tests in maths, reading and science. In 2012 fully 500,000 heads were bent over desks for the exam in 65 countries or cities. The results, published on December 3rd, doled out a large helping of humble pie to Europe’s former champion. Finland has fallen by 22 points on its 2009 result, with smaller falls (12 points and 9) in reading and science. “The golden days are over,” lamented the Finnbay news website.
None of this should have come as a surprise. Finland’s maths performance has been tailing off since 2006. But it is worsening faster than in other countries with falling scores such as Canada and Denmark. The Asian high-fliers (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore) have consolidated their position at the top. Much soul-searching is under way in Helsinki.
Leena Krokfors, an academic there, blames declining motivation and a failure of maths teachers and the curriculum to inspire enthusiasm. Others are beginning to wonder whether the egalitarian nature of Finnish education might be an underlying problem. Juha Yla-Jaaski, who runs a technology project to stretch the academically able, worries that a focus on raising the achievement of the majority of pupils shortchanges the cleverest. The country is “kidding itself”, Mr Yla-Jaaski says, if it thinks they can catch up at university.
As Finns argue about how to retain their pre-eminence, many other countries in the West still envy it—as well as the progress of rapid improvers such as Estonia and Poland. France and Germany, in contrast, have flatlined. America’s dire showing led Arne Duncan, the education secretary, to decry “a picture of educational stagnation”, with Americans being “out-educated” by the Chinese. Some hope for a motivating shock like that delivered in 1957 by the Soviet Sputnik launch.
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There's a couple of schools of thought with standardized testing between the US and other countries and compulsory public education: 1. Some people believe we're losing our global competitiveness to other countries, such as S. Korea and other Asian countries in particular. S. Korea, Singapore, and other Asian countries traditionally score high on standardized math exams. 2. Others, such as Diane Ravitch who initially supported CC and Bush jr, have reversed course and believe it's a bunch of poppycock. They say that the US in particular has never scored high on those standardized tests. Moreover, Ravitch says that standardized test score argument is weak when we consider the overall creativity and originality of US patents, technologies, or companies such as Google and Facebook. Here's Ravitch's blog on it - http://dianeravitch.net/2013/12/03/my-view-of-the-pisa-scores/3. Some say Finland and northern European (sans UK who seem to be caught up in national testing and standards) take a more hands-off approach to reading and other standardized tests and this ultimately breeds more successful students. Denmark, on the other hand, has been widely touted as the happiest people on earth for a number of years. 4. Some in China, such as Zhao Bowen, are now trying to locate and isolate high intelligence to spawn superbabies. Read this article - http://dianeravitch.net/2013/12/03/my-view-of-the-pisa-scores/In order to breed a Leonard da Vinci, though, you need to have the mind of a scientist AND the mind of the artist. In the US, we tend to forget that second part and that's to the country's detriment, imo. You need that divergent thinking that comes with music, the arts, creating, the humanities, etc. IMO, we need to take a much more individualized, personal approach to education - more like unschooling. This isn't going to happen though. But the harsh reality is that we need friendly, kind car mechanics who are technical whizzes but don't test well on standardized tests as much as we do people who score off-the-chart on those standardized tests. And I was really cursing public education for ditching auto shop when I needed a car mechanic!
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Sorry, China article on why people are so smart and creating superbabies - http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/07/genetics-of-iq/Note - Zhao Bowen is still looking for an IQ genetic marker yet others have argued that exceptional working memory is a better indicator for education and potential (and prodigies).
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Joined: Sep 2007
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Others, such as Diane Ravitch who initially supported CC and Bush jr, have reversed course and believe it's a bunch of poppycock. They say that the US in particular has never scored high on those standardized tests. Moreover, Ravitch says that standardized test score argument is weak when we consider the overall creativity and originality of US patents, technologies, or companies such as Google and Facebook. Oh dear. I wondered how many of those patent holders came from elsewhere, and if she only counted American-educated inventors. Someone else asked the same question in the comments section. The reply was what I would expect from someone who DIDN'T control appropriately: Jim, December 8, 2013 at 8:12 pm
“And when it came to creativity, the U.S. “clobbered the world,” with more patents per million people than any other nation.”
Well, if we’re using this measure to rate this country’s education system, we should exclude patents gained by people who received their education outside the US and immigrated. I’ll bet that’s a lot of them.
dianeravitch December 8, 2013 at 11:30 pm
Jim, why did they immigrate here? Freedom? Opportunity? Great universities? Can anyone Name That Formal Fallacy? Seriously, this what edumacator types do when you catch them trying to distort something: change the subject.
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Ireland has a national curriculum and all schools get equal financial support. Switzerland's cantons set their own curricula, but everyone takes the same test at the end of high school. All schools get equal financial support. It's easier to reach consensus on a national curriculum, including which specific books are to be taught, in a relatively homogeneous country of about 5 million such as Ireland than in a sprawling, diverse country of 300+ million such as the U.S. Imagine if all the countries in the European Union had to come up with a continent-wide curriculum. There are substantial differences in academic achievement across states. People bemoan the U.S. PISA results, but Massachusetts PISA results are among the world's best. If you made the students in Mississippi pass the same test (the MCAS) as students in Massachusetts do to get a high school diploma, the number of high school drop-outs produced would be unacceptably high. Common Core is an effort to fix the problem of differing state standards, but NCLB allowed states to set their own standards to avoid high failure rates in lower-performing states.
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Switzerland has 4 official languages and they talk about adding English from time to time. It has long been a popular work destination for foreigners (like me). Currently, 27% of the population is foreign.
They come from Africa (French speaking cantons), the Middle East (all cantons), northern Europe (German-speaking cantons), southern Europe (Italian-speaking cantons), and a variety of other places. Geneva and Vaud are an international as places can get.
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