Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education The Rhetoric and Reality of Gap Closing

Exactly. But 'your just a kid, stay out of it' is the attitude around here. I give a big ole razzbery to that.

Those making the rules are clueless to be blunt. The harm they do is so great... but no one sees it because they are the byproduct of the same system which teaches them not to question authority and to be apathetic. At least it seems that way to me.

I am sorry you people are not listening to you, you deserve to be heard. There is no greater expert in education than the student him or herself.

Time and time again along with corporate success has demonstrated that the key is listening to the customer. Those who listen thrive, those who do not fail.

Those among you who are interested in an international perspective on gap closing may be interested in this blog post on Finland, which has been widely commended for being one of the countries where the gap between the lowest and the highest performers in the OECD's PISA assessment is smallest, and, most importantly, cuts across SES lines and school.

Finnish performance in the programme for international student achievement (Pisa) league tables has led to an influx of educational tourism to Finland since the rankings were first published in 2001. We may have slipped in the latest judgment from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – which tests more than 500,000 pupils in 66 countries ranking performance in reading, maths and science – but we are still very much at the top tier of the world's best performing educations systems and the attention isn't likely to disappear soon.

Today's results, however, show Finland dropping out of the top 10 performers in maths, with a score of 519, 22 points lower than the last ranking three years ago. Reading skills fell 12 points to 524, while the science ranking dropped nine points to 545. Signs of this were already showing in PISA 2009, although the slippage was less than anticipated.

I am concerned that the Finnish education system is letting down our brightest students. In every country, there is a debate about whether education systems should group children according to their ability. In Finland, we have taken a firm stance not to do this based on the belief that having mixed groups has distinct advantages, such as children teaching each other.

But are we giving enough room for our most intelligent young people to flourish? Every summer the organisation I run, Technology Academy Finland, brings the brightest teenagers in the world to Finland to work on science projects together. This year, the Millennium Youth Camp welcomed 60 students from 31 countries to work on sophisticated problems such as designing sanitation systems for a space mission to Mars. At this end of the educational spectrum, where the children's ambitions are to improve on the work of Nobel prize-winners, it is vitally important to stretch the young people's minds.

In many Finnish classrooms, however, the pace is determined by the lower-achieving students. In the lower grades, all children from the most talented to the least talented are grouped together. Some commend our system for serving all students well, regardless of family background or socio-economic status. But it means our brightest cannot maximise their potential. No other country has so little variation in outcomes between schools, and the gap within schools between the top and bottom-achieving students is slim.

Finland may not be a model to follow. Academic achievement has been falling, although from a high level, and closing gaps is not a good thing if it is accomplished by hindering the brightest

the Matthew Effect

gifted children performed much better than nongifted children, demonstrating transfer of the strategy to a new, dissimilar, task.

many interventions provide training in areas in which the higher functioning group has already mastered the skills

if policymakers intend some cognitive interventions to close preexisting gaps, then such demonstrations underscore the need for more focused, targeted interventions that boost the lower scoring group without adding to the higher scoring group’s preintervention advantage

One can imagine from an ethical position a case being made that every student has an intrinsic right to have access to any intervention that is known to improve performance. Thus, one could argue that any intervention that elevates the performance of any student should be made available to that student, without regard to his or her financial needs, ethnic membership, aptitude level, or the social and political consequences of that student’s elevation vis-a`-vis lower functioning peers.

However, when funding is so limited that the intervention cannot be made universally available, then hard decisions have to be made as to whether the program should be targeted exclusively to those most in need.

Agreed.

In her blog (linked upthread), the traveling teacher mentioned "I wonder if this “everyone is doing okay, so lets not worry about it” mentality is going to be a problem for Finland in the future."

Viewing Finland using the free, online, interactive tool 2016 Index of Economic Freedom, we see a drop in Finland's government spending from 2010-2012 which seems to correlate with the drop in PISA scores mentioned in the linked article from The Guardian. While correlation does not imply causation, the greater freedom in the USA fuels self-reliance, internal locus of control, motivation, and competition... which can drive both achievement and excellence.

Comparing the United States (ranked 11th) and Finland (ranked 24th) using the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom tool to graph a comparison, we see in detail the greater freedoms in the US as compared with Finland.

With greater freedom comes greater risk and reward.

I think you are getting too political -- and I probably share most of your political views.