MYTH: You can do more with less

This was written by Pasi Sahlberg who is a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? This post first appeared here.

by Pasi Sahlberg

Governments in Alberta and Finland are under economic pressure to reduce public spending as a result of failed national politics and unpredictable global economics. When government budgets get off track, bad news for education systems follow. The recently defeated Finnish government carried out huge cuts in education infrastructure. As a result, small schools were closed, teaching staff lost their jobs and morale among educators declined. Albertans are now facing similar threats.

When the going gets tough in our wealthy societies, the powers-that-be often choose quick fixes. In search of a silver bullet instead of sustained systemic improvement, politicians turn their eyes on teachers, believing that asking them to do more with less can compensate for inconvenient reductions in school resources. With super teachers, some of them say, the quality of education will improve even with lesser budgets. While some might suggest leadership is doing more with less, I would counter that real political leadership is about getting the appropriate resources in place to create a vibrant society.

“Teacher effectiveness” is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. It plays a visible role in the education policies of nations where there is a wide range of teacher qualifications and therefore uneven teacher quality. Measuring teacher effectiveness has brought different methods of evaluation to the lives of teachers in many countries. The most controversial of them include what is known as value-added models that use data from standardized tests of students as part of the overall measure of the effect that a teacher has on student achievement.

Alberta and Finland are significantly better off than many other countries when it comes to teacher quality and teacher policies. In the United States, for example, there are nearly 2,000 different teacher preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Canada and Finland, only rigorously accredited academic teacher education programs are available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor Finland has fast-track options into teaching (although Teach for Canada is entering the game in Alberta with 40 new recruits in 2015/2016). Teacher quality in successful education systems is a result of careful quality control at the entry stage of teacher education rather than measuring the effectiveness of in-service teachers.

In recent years the “no excuses” argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse used to avoid insisting that all schools should reach higher standards. With this argument, the silver bullet is better teachers. In Finland, education policies have concentrated more on school improvement than on teacher effectiveness, indicating that schools are expected to improve by having everyone work together rather than teachers working individually. Lessons from the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) were identical. Effective school development is equally about system-wide social capital and developing strong individual human capital.

THREE Fallacies

When education budgets are questioned or cut, teachers are often asked to do more with less. Some economists have calculated how much students’ achievement could be improved by enhancing the quality of the teaching force. An efficient way to do that, they argue, is to find poorly performing teachers and get rid of them. Then, bringing young, enthusiastic talent into these classrooms will actually lead to the betterment of education at the same time when resources diminish. Within this logic lie three fallacies that, if taken as facts, will be harmful for the teaching profession and thereby for the entire education system.

The first fallacy is to believe that the best way to elevate the teaching profession is to attract the best and the brightest to become teachers. In many countries the teaching profession has suffered from declining social respect, trust and thereby popularity among young people as prospective and admired lifelong career. Education system leaders, such as Arne Duncan in the U.S. and Michael Gove in the U.K., have suggested that recruiting academically smarter people to teach in schools would enhance the quality of teaching and improve academic outcomes in schools.

Those who rely on the idea of “the best and the brightest” often point to Finland and Singapore as examples of education systems that have built their success on that principle. We frequently hear that the best education systems systematically recruit new student teachers from the top 10 per cent of their applicant pool. But a closer look at how students are selected into initial teacher education programs reveals that the truth is not that straightforward.

The University of Helsinki in Finland selects 120 new students from approximately 2,000 applicants each year for its primary school teacher education program. This pool is large enough to actually pick up all 120 students from the best quintile. But that doesn’t happen.

In 2014, as I have shown elsewhere, only one of four students selected into the teacher education program at the University of Helsinki came from the top quintile. Furthermore, one in four students had an academic record that placed her or him in the bottom half of the pool, as measured by their performance in diploma examinations. Clearly it is important that criteria beyond strictly defined academic qualifications must be considered in selecting teacher candidates.

Singapore follows similar academic admission procedures for students who study at the National Institute of Education.

The second fallacy is that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. This statement became known in education policies through the influential McKinsey & Company report entitled How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out On Top. It has since appeared in the 2012 reports of the Programme for International Student Assessment — by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — as well as several policy reports and documents. Although these documents often take a broader view of enhancing the status of teachers through better pay and careful recruitment, this statement implies that the quality of an education system is defined by the quality of its teachers.

Many educators, and certainly experienced teachers and school principals, perceive teaching in school as team play. The role of an individual teacher in a school is like a player on a football team or musician in an orchestra: all teachers are vital, but the culture of the school is even more important for the quality of the school. Team sports and performing arts offer numerous examples of teams that have performed beyond expectations because of leadership, commitment and spirit.

Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both the Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team U.S.A certainly exceeded the quality of its players. Or take Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse. Without five-star musicians that always hit all the chords perfectly they have performed better than the quality of each player and created music enjoyed by millions for almost half a century. So can an education system.

The third fallacy is that the most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers. This is the driving principle of former New York City public schools’ chancellor Joel Klein in his new book as well as many other education “reformers” today. If a teacher were the most important single factor in improving quality of education, then the power of a school would indeed be stronger than children’s family background or peer influences in explaining student achievement in school. But we have known since the mid-1960s that that isn’t so.

Research on what explains students’ measured performance in school remains mixed. However, researchers generally agree that up to two-thirds of the variation in student achievement is explainable by individual student characteristics like family background and such variables. The American Statistical Association concluded recently that teachers account for about 1 per cent to 14 per cent of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in system-level conditions. In other words, most of what explains student achievement is beyond the control of teachers or even schools, and therefore arguing that teachers are the most important factor in improving the quality of education is simply wrong.

This doesn’t mean that teachers would not be important or that individual teachers could not turn the course of children in school. Of course they do. But it is often a combination of powerful factors that makes the most positive impact on students. Most scholars agree that effective leadership is among the most important characteristics of good schools, equally important to powerful teaching. Effective leadership includes leader qualities, such as being firm and purposeful, having a shared vision and goals, promoting teamwork and collegiality and frequent personal monitoring and feedback. Several other characteristics of more effective schools include features that are also linked to the culture of the school and leadership: maintaining focus on learning, producing a positive school climate, setting high expectations for all, developing staff skills and involving parents. In other words, school leadership matters as much as teacher quality.

HANDLE WITH CARE

At a time of austerity, education policymakers have to be very careful in changing and also protecting current conditions that influence the teaching profession. It is tempting to suggest that, by enhancing teacher effectiveness, we can maintain current levels of teaching quality in schools. It is also far too convenient to suggest that, on top of all other duties, teachers should contribute more to struggling national economies by creating innovators, active citizens and a skilled labour force to emerging new occupations. In this respect, Alberta and Finland stand before a similar challenge. Searching for super teachers is not the right solution.

Instead, leaders in Alberta and Finland need to be reminded that schools must have appropriate, well-researched policies supported by adequate resources to be part of the campaign to bring our economies back on track. Finnish schools are now redesigning their curricula to match the National Curriculum Framework 2016. All schools must have at least one extended study period for all students, and all the school subjects are merged into integrated, phenomenon-based teaching and learning. Municipalities and schools may choose to have more than one such study period per year, and they may also decide the duration of these periods. This renewal has the potential to become a revolutionary step forward in building the ideal future school in Finland.

Educational reform won’t happen without sustained investments in schools, appropriate support to teachers, and changing some of the current regulations that stand in the way of planned change. Bilateral research partnerships like that between Finland and Alberta (FINAL) can play a pivotal role in making necessary changes possible. As we have learned from FINAL, it is through the internationalization of education research and evidence gathering that we can create the kinds of schools our students deserve.

1 The entire March 2015 issue of Educational Researcher, the journal of the American Educational Research Association, was dedicated to teacher evaluations and value-added models.

2 Sahlberg, P. 2015. “Q: What makes Finland’s teachers so special? A: It’s not brains.” The Guardian, March 31. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/31/finnish-teachers-special-train-teach (accessed on April 24, 2015).

3 McKinsey & Company. 2010. How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top. London: McKinsey & Company.

4 American Statistical Association (ASA). 2014. ASAStatement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment. Alexandra, Va: ASA.

Diane Ravitch's Forward for Finnish Lessons 2.0

This was written by Diane Ravitch as the forward to Pasi Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons 2.0: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?

by Diane Ravitch

Pasi Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons was published exactly when it was most needed. When it appeared, the so-called education "reform" movement was ascendant in the United States and elsewhere and growing stronger.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan were enthusiastic supporters of "reform." Their program, called Race to the Top, was launched in 2009, and it contained the key ingredients of the reform paradigm: testing, accountability and choice. Educators were caught by surprise, as they had been led to expect that President Obama would end President George W. Bush's much-hated No Child Left Behind (NCLB). But the Obama program was built directly on the shaky foundation of NCLB. Instead of jettisoning high stakes testing, Race to the Top increased the importance of testing. Now, not only would students and schools be held accountable for student test scores, but teachers would be given a bonus or fired based on test scores.

The reform movement moved into high gear in 2010. Newsweek magazine ran a cover story that spring declaring "we must fire bad teachers," as though schools were overrun by "bad" teachers. That fall, the film Waiting for "Superman" was released with massive publicity. Its message: our public schools are failing, and the only hop for children stuck in "failing" public school sis to escape to a privately managed charter school. The then-chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools, Michelle Rhee, became a media sensation, with her tough talk about the schools and the pleasure she took in firing teachers and principals.

Some of the nation's richest foundations -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and many others -- poured millions into this reform movement, encouraging high-stakes testing, Teach for America, charter schools, and even (in the case of the Walton Foundation) vouchers for religious schools.

Several states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana, rolled back collective bargaining rights, and teachers' unions became scapegoats, blamed for low test scores and for driving up the cost of education because of their health care and pensions. Surveys showed that teachers were demoralized -- as well they should be -- by the attacks upon them and upon their profession.

Thus it was that when Pasi Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons was published, it injected a new dimension into education debates. Finland had high test scores in international student assessments, and it was not doing anything that our American reformers demanded. It had a strong public school system. It did not have charters or vouchers. It had very high standards for entry into teaching; there was no such thing as Teach for Finland that would allow inexperienced young college graduates to teach in Finnish schools. Sahlberg described a 5-year teacher preparation program that all teachers must complete to teach in Finnish schools.

Teachers and principals belong to the same union, which not only negotiates wages and working conditions, but advocates on behalf of children and schools. Although Finland has a national curriculum, teachers have wide latitude to shape it to their own needs and strengths. Best of all, Finland does not subject students to standardized tests until the end of their high school years. As Sahlberg writes, the schools are a standardized testing-free zone.

What many American educators loved about Finnish Lessons is that it portrays an alternative universe, one that respects educators and enables them to do their best work, one that recognizes that society has an obligation to ensure the health and well-being of children. Sahlberg knew that the Finnish story stoop in sharp contrast with what was happening in the United States and other countries. He refers to this movement for testing and choice as GERM: the Global Educational Reform Movement.

Yes, indeed, the United States, Britain, and many other countries are infected with GERM. Finnish Lessons 2.0 is a disinfectant. It reminds us that nation can consciously build an admirable school system if it pays close attention to the needs of children, if it selects and prepares its educators well, and if it builds educational communities that are not only physically attractive but conducive to the joys of teaching and learning.

David Berliner and Pasi Sahlberg

I'm in Calgary at the Calgary Teachers' Convention and I am listening to David Berliner and Pasi Sahlberg talk about The Roots of Success for All Children: It's in the context of their lives, not just in their classroom experiences.

David Berliner

• Despite what you might hear, teachers do not affect standardized test scores very much
• Teachers do affect student's lives but not their scores
• Standardized test are influenced by socio-economic circumstances and less by classroom instruction.
• Want to improve scores? Improve children's lives outside of school.
• As the context of children's lives changes, so do their standardized test scores.
• Children who live in chaos tend to be chaotic. Remove the chaos --  
• Societies affect on children's performance is intense.
• The Problem is Poverty.
• There are many school variables that teachers can't control: class size, administrators, collective empathy of the faculty, teacher turn over, students coming and going.
• We can not trust standardized tests to tell us what we want to know about our schools.
• Want to find the school with the highest test scores? Buy an expensive house.
• When governments cut education, they make inequality and inequity worse, and the poorest people pay the most.
• There is a huge difference in the number of books in the richest homes and the poorest homes.
• Affluent parents tend to speak more with their children than the poorest parents who are struggling to make ends meet.
• The best education systems care as much about what happens outside of the classroom as what happens inside.
• Standardized tests are insensitive to teacher instruction.
• Alberta needs to pay closer attention to the research on school improvement
• Here are all of my posts on David Berliner

Pasi Sahlberg

• In 2000, many school systems thought that they had found the secret elixir to fix all schools: Accountability through standardized tests. PISA's influence was born.
• Since 2000, the focus of school improvement has been focused intensely on teachers.
• The United States is a good example of how not to improve education.
• Finland's reaction to school improvement and PISA is unique and paradoxical.
• Finland did not react or allow PISA to affect their system until 2008. 8 years after they were lauded as the best in the world. Finland was reluctant to share their story.
• Two Global Paths of Inquiry: What makes education systems perform well? What prevents system-wide improvement?
• Traditional Policy Logic: Should we focus on quality or equity? We know that we don't have to choose.
• Canada does very well with high quality and equity, but we are going in the wrong direction.
• While Canada and Alberta has traditionally compared well with their equity and equality, they are going in the wrong direction.
• Finland has had an inclusive education system for two decades.

Five things to learn from Finland:

1. Resourcing Policy: Schools with more needs, need more resources.
2. Early Childhood Care: This isn't really about education -- it's about childcare. 
3. Health and Wellbeing: Universal healthcare inside and outside of school. In the US, the number 1 reason why students miss school is because of problems with their teeth.
4. Special Education: A system that is proactive and preventative with students with special needs. Prevention is always cheaper than repair. 
5. Balanced Curriculum: Children need to learn about the arts and physical education as much as numeracy and literacy.

Pak Tee Ng (Singapore): Teach Less, Learn More

Here are 5 points that stand out for me:

1. Focusing on PISA scores, or scores on any other test, is not the same as focusing on student learning in the classroom. Too often, a focus on standardized testing can actually have a harmful affect on teaching and learning.

2. Education is an investment -- not an expenditure. Cutting education is like a farmer who sells his top soil.

3. Teachers don't need surveillance -- they need support. You don't improve the education system by firing individual bad teachers -- you improve the education system by creating good teachers and then trust them to do their job.

4. Teach Less -- Learn More. Pasi Sahlberg writes about Finland and Gary Stager writes about the Maker Movement. Pak Tee Ng reminds us that, "more of the same teaching is not the way to inspire better learning." Efforts to "teacher-proof" education via standardization is not the solution, it's the problem. 

5. You say you want this, so why are you doing that? Unfortunately, myths are often more satisfying to us than the truth - in education we are satisfyingly distracted by a great many myths. If we are to improve school, we have to allow it to change. And if we want to make the right change, we need to be evidence and research based.

Province shouldn't pay for Private Schools

This was written by Kent Hehr who is MLA for Calgary-Buffalo and Liberal education critic in the Alberta Legislature.

by Kent Hehr

The public school system takes all types: it does not exclude on the basis of race, creed, background, language, origin or religion. No one is turned away. No one has to take an intelligence test. No one is refused admittance if they have a disability — unlike what happens in too many private schools.

The public school system is not exclusionary like Strathcona Tweedsmuir, charging their students $20,000 a year to attend high school. Of all the private schools funded in Alberta, roughly 39 per cent are based on elitism (i.e., they charge tuition), while 43 per cent are religious. This supports my position that, in the main, private schools separate children on the basis of wealth and the religion of their parents.

Furthermore, the stats used to support private school choice are questionable at best. If anyone bothered to do their research, they would know there are a wide variety of studies that show public education leads to both better outcomes for individuals and societies.

It is also ludicrous to cite Finland’s education system in support of the position that funding private schools is a good thing. Faith-based schools outside of the public system in Finland are extremely limited, because every school is required to be approved by a vote in their national assembly. Finnish schools cannot charge tuition, and they must accept everyone regardless of ability or faith. Let’s also remember that 97 per cent of the Finnish population are either Lutheran or have no religious affiliation at all — which is quite different compared to the multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious makeup of Alberta.

The Finland voucher system is based upon parents’ ability to select any public school that they want their children to attend in that country. We have the same thing here in Alberta. Parents are allowed to send their children to any public school that they would like (space permitting).

Government resources should be spent on services that move a society forward. A fully funded and properly managed public education system can, does and will provide Albertans with ample amounts of choice to accomplish this goal. Accordingly, there is no need to subsidize elitist education for the wealthy, religious schooling for myriad different belief systems, or any other reason individuals may feel that the public system is not for them.

It is time Albertans decide whether we want to separate our children on the basis of wealth and religion by subsidizing private schools or commit ourselves to the principle of equality of opportunity, which recognizes that whether you were born of a rich family or one that struggles, whether you are Christian or Muslim, whether your child has a physical or learning disability or is the next Albert Einstein, your child is going to get a fair chance to succeed in this province through government-funded world-class public education.

If parents do not feel that the public system is good enough for their children, well, that is in fact their choice — but let them pay for their choice at a private school. Don’t ask other Albertans to fund it.

You can't improve education by disrespecting teachers

This was written by Greg Neiman who is a retired Red Deer Advocate editor. Follow his blog at readersadvocate.blogspot.ca or email greg.neiman.blog@gmail.com. This post was originally found here.

by Greg Neiman

These days, everyone is agog over Finland’s model for public education, which seemingly produces the brightest students in the world. Likewise, people swoon over the performance of Asian students, particularly in math and science.

Alberta students rank right up there with them, but there’s a Canadian ethos that says anything foreign must be better. So in our eyes, the Finns and the Asians rule the world today.

Except when they don’t. Red Deer educators have told me that Alberta’s public school curriculum is the top-requested program among countries looking to improve their own education systems, and international test results.

Why? Because our students are consistently top-flight, and the curriculum that brings the knowledge to the students is delivered in English.

Both Finnish and Asian languages are difficult adapt to educational policies for most nations. Alberta’s curriculum is far more adaptable to other cultures. As a result, I’m told that Alberta teachers with experience delivering our curriculum find the doors to international teaching opportunities open quickly.

That said, what are the commonalities between the programs in Finland, Asia and Alberta that a layperson can understand?

One that has been related to me — sometimes with pride and sometimes with despair — is that the role of the teacher is highly respected in top-flight programs. It takes a lot of training to become a public school teacher in these countries, both academically and in experience. When people suggest that a high proportion of public school teachers should have — or should work toward — a masters-level degree, that implies a high regard for the importance of the job.

So there is a disconnect, then, when teachers feel they need to resort to job action to achieve the working conditions (and, yes, pay) needed to make the job and the program work.

Today’s example of that disconnect is the ongoing dispute between the government of British Columbia and its 41,000 teachers.

Rotating one-day strikes are set to begin this week in an all-too-public battle over negotiations for a new provincial contract. While individual schools will be closed for one day, the province has moved to dock everyone’s pay by 10 per cent, call the teachers greedy and try to set them against other public sector unions.

The teachers rejected a $1,200 signing bonus for a new contract, saying they’d rather have rules instituted about class size caps, and a policy that enforces better supports in cases when classrooms exceed pre-set limits for special-needs children.

B.C. does have the second-lowest per-student funding regime in Canada. B.C.’s teachers have not seen a raise since 2010 and want to play catch-up.

But those are issues for the negotiating table.

What can be seen by outsiders here is that you can’t build a top-flight public education system when you don’t respect the professional opinions of teachers.

It must be noted that Premier Christy Clark was B.C.’s education minister when the government outlawed having classroom conditions as part of the collective bargaining process with teachers.

A decade of court battles that followed — in which the government lost every round — had its most recent round end in January with a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that you cannot separate the working conditions of the classroom from the contracts of teachers.

In the industrial world, the conditions of any job — workload, safety, physical workplace standards, etc. — all have a bearing on wage expectations and quality-of-product standards.

In education, you can’t expect world-level quality of education in a system in which there are no limits to classroom size, or when a good portion of students who need special attention aren’t getting support.

What those class sizes should be, and what levels of support there should be are well-documented in international studies: check Finland, Asia and Alberta, where these workplace standards have negotiated numbers attached.

In the working careers of pretty well all B.C. teachers, there have only been two contracts settled without some kind of job action or arbitration needed. Only once has this been achieved in the last 10 years.

Clearly, following B.C.’s old script isn’t working. And it wouldn’t work here, either.

Either you trust your teachers to know how to deliver one of the most envied curriculums in the world or you don’t. Either you listen to their professional advice as experts on the ground, or you denigrate them as greedy and try to have the cheapest education system in the country.

A world-class public education system can’t be delivered without collaboration, and without public investment.

Half-Day Heaven: Afterschool with Finland's 1st and 2nd Graders

This was written by Tim Walker who is an American teaching in Finland. Tim has an insightful blog titled Taught by Finland. Tim tweets here. You can find this post on Tim's blog here.

by Tim Walker

“We just think seven- and eight-year-olds should have free-play in the afternoon. There’s no need for them to do an eight-hour workday.” As I listen to Juulia, an afterschool leader at my Finnish school, I’m shuffling my feet to keep warm in the bitter cold. Iltapäiväkerho (IP-kerho), “Afternoon Club”, has just ended and she’s about to head home. It’s 4:00 PM.

Juulia is introducing me to a strange new world where seven- and eight-year-olds spend hours afterschool engaged in free-play, pursuing their interests with friends. These children are welcome to complete their homework during this time, but this is never required of them. They get to choose what they want to do and when. Nearly 70% of the first and second graders at my school attend IP-kerho.

This afternoon club is subsidized by the City of Helsinki and parents only pay 80 euros (a little more than $100) per child each month. That’s about $5 each day for nearly four hours of childcare and a snack.

The IP-kerho model is common throughout Finland and municipalities often subsidize these clubs. Not all afternoon clubs emphasize free-play, but many do. IP-kerhos can offer special programs to the children, too. At my school’s afternoon club, drumming, astronomy, and drama classes have been offered for a small additional fee. Private clubs also exist in Finland.

At my school, IP-kerho begins at 12:15 PM every day. Why so early? First graders often finish their school days by 12:00. Second graders have light schedules, too.

In Finland, first and second graders typically spend just four hours at school each day. At my American school, this would have been a half-day schedule! For Finland’s youngest students, I’ve argued that half-days happen every day.

Since having this realization, I’ve been on a mission to understand the other half of the day for these first and second graders. I decided that I needed to see my school’s afternoon club in action.

Inside the IP-kerho

Chaos. That’s what I’m thinking when I take one step into one of the playrooms. It’s loud and crowded. Sprawled around the small room are more than 20 first and second graders, chatting and moving around boisterously. What I’m noticing contrasts sharply with my observations in a Finnish first grade classroom.

But the longer I stand and watch, the more I’m seeing that there is a sense of order here. Several first and second graders are huddled around a table, playing an Angry Birds board game. There’s another table where a handful of students are coloring and drawing. A couple of second graders are leaning against the wall and humming as they leaf through a large atlas. Below them, two girls quiz each other on math, scrawling addition problems on a small blackboard.

There’s a door along the back wall that leads to the “quiet room “, a place where students voluntarily choose to go if they need a peaceful spot to play. I find three girls whispering as they snap legos together.

The IP-kerho leader is hanging back and supervising from a distance. He’s available to the students, but he’s not dictating what they should be doing.

It may be loud and busy, but this is truly the kind of deep engagement that teachers and parents long to see. No one’s complaining of boredom. I’m not hearing bickering among the children. And there’s a refreshing absence of screen-time, too.

These are young children who are exercising their creativity, collaborating with each other, and naturally developing their blossoming academic skills. And to think, no one has forced them to do any of these things. They’ve made their choices freely.

Free-Choice: Time, Space, and Materials

Earlier this week, I asked Ritva, a bilingual first grader, if she liked IP-Kerho. She nodded. When I pressed her to say why, Ritva didn’t miss a beat, “I get to do what I want.”

Choice is at the heart of what I’m seeing during this afternoon club. These young children are given freedom to pursue their own interests when they play.

Although the act of providing time to play is important, it’s not enough in and of itself. The play-space matters and so do the materials. Imagine the response of these children if they were told that they could only play in a completely empty room. Would anyone expect to see them engaged in deep play?

At this IP-kerho, the children have three different places to play and each spot has its own set of materials. They can go outside to run around on the playground or the soccer field. Another option is the gym where students can shoot hoops, swing on gymnastic rings, and play floor hockey. As I described earlier, the children can also choose to spend their time in one of the well-stocked playrooms.

There are eight IP-kerho leaders who spread out across these locations. The children choose where they want to go and when. It’s free-play in the truest sense.

As a first and second grade teacher in the Boston area, I never saw students this young look so refreshed after 12:00. The balance of academics in the morning and play in the afternoon must be nourishing them.

This afternoon club is providing them with the time, space, and materials to pursue their interests freely. These children are glowing on this half-day. It’s heavenly.

First Grade in Finland: Every Day is a Half-Day

This was written by Tim Walker who is an American teaching in Finland. Tim has an insightful blog titled Taught by Finland. Tim tweets here. You can find this post on Tim's blog here.

by Tim Walker

When I was teaching first grade in the Greater Boston area, my Finnish wife, Johanna, loved to tell me about schools in Finland. Most of what she told me sounded mythical.

According to Johanna, Finnish children started first grade at age seven. Their school days were often just four hours long. Her close Finnish friend, a first grade teacher in Helsinki, worked about 30 hours each week, including planning time.

For years, I refused to believe my wife. My reality as an American first grade teacher was just too different from the one she described.

Many of my first grade students were a full year or two younger than their Finnish peers. Our school days lasted seven hours. Unlike Johanna’s friend, I was pulling in 50-hour weeks of teaching and planning. I just didn’t believe that another way was possible until I started teaching in Finland.

The Afternoon Blues

In the hallways of my Finnish school, I often observe first graders packing up their backpacks to go home at 12:00. Even though the school year began in August, this is still a strange sight for me. This would have been the sign of a half-day at my previous school. In Finland, this is normal for first graders.

As a first grade teacher in the States, I found that the afternoon was the toughest part of the school day. When my students returned from lunch and recess around 1:00 PM, I noticed a sharp drop in their energy levels. And they weren’t the only ones who were tired. I was exhausted, too.

During the afternoon, I often felt the urge to give my young students time for unstructured play. Sometimes I’d hear them wistfully recall how there used to be free play in kindergarten. On the rare half-day, my students were always brimming over with excitement.

Even though my American first graders craved unstructured time, I would feel guilty about providing it in the classroom. In my mind, free play was babyish. It was non-academic. Although my students and I found ways of coping with the afternoon blues, I always wondered about the Finnish model that my wife would rave about. Was there a way for first graders to have enough time for both work and play in a school setting?

More Opportunities for Play

Although I’m a fifth grade classroom teacher in Finland, I’ve been able to spend several hours observing and co-teaching first grade classes at my school. I’ve found that first grade in Finland is actually quite academic. I’ve yet to see first grade teachers who use class time for unstructured play.

What I have seen, however, is a school structure that provides children with more opportunities to play. Each lesson is one hour long, but according to Finnish law, students are entitled to take a 15-minute break every lesson. On almost every occasion, younger students spend these breaks outside with their friends.

In Child and Adolescent Development for Educators (2008), professors Judith Meece and Denise Daniels praise the wisdom of structuring regular breaks for social interactions and physical activities during the school day. Research has shown that these breaks work to improve concentration and attention during classroom times.

Although first graders in Finland usually spend just four hours at school, these break times obviously reduce the total number of hours that they log in the classroom. All told, they only spend about three hours in class each day. Even on a half-day at my previous school, my American first graders would still put in more classroom hours than their Finnish peers on a full-day schedule.

Heading home at 12:00 or 1:00 PM gives these young Finnish students more opportunities to engage in deep play. This is the type of play that helps children to develop creativity and analytical thinking.

According to Myae Han, assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Delaware, deep play starts to emerge at about 30 minutes. Researchers have found that children actually stop trying to achieve this higher quality of play if they anticipate interruption. Giving children lots of time for free play will foster this deeper level of play (Blair, 2014).

Of course, this is a difficult task to accomplish in most elementary schools, even in Finland. This is why shortening the number of school hours for young children is sensible. It provides them with more time to access this deeper level of play afterschool.

When Less is More

There is mounting pressure to increase the amount of time that American students spend in school.

In his recent State of the State speech, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said, “It’s time to lengthen both the school day and the school year in New Jersey. This is a key step to improve students outcomes and boost our competitiveness.” According to Governor Christie, the current school calendar is “antiquated.” He seems to believe that increasing the quantity of school hours will improve the quality of a student’s education (Morones, 2014).

Governor Christie is misguided. It’s not the length of the school year that is antiquated, but the length of the typical school day for America’s youngest students. Why do most American first graders put in the same number of hours as upper-elementary students? In Finland, students in the younger grades have less hours of school than the older ones. Ironically, my fifth graders in Helsinki have less class time each day than the first graders I used to teach in the Greater Boston area.

Every day I see first graders who thrive with shorter school days in Finland. They can (and often do) spend hours engaged in deep play long after the school day has ended, developing their creativity and analytical thinking skills.

The Pitfall of PISA Envy

Whether it be business, education or life in general, it often makes sense to figure out what you want to do and what you do not want to do. It's also a good idea to figure out how you are going to assess your success.

This is good, but I would like to add one more step.

I think it's also important to decide how you will not assess what you've done. I think Maya Angelou provided us with a wonderful example of this when she said:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away.

In one sentence, Angelou helps us to see what we should be doing (living), while simultaneously showing us how we should and should not measure the quality of our lives.

For the last decade, Finland has been the model nation for education systems around the world. Finland should be applauded for resisting the urge to invest in the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) and instead pursuing alternative policies. Perhaps most notably, standardized tests are almost completely absent from Finnish schools.

And yet, world attention has been focused on Finland mostly because of their high scores on PISA's standardized tests. 

See the contradiction?

PISA's 2012 rankings show Finland has been replaced at the top with a handful of Asian countries (and a city). By idolizing the rankings, people might drop Finland like a hot-potato to chase after Asian countries who achieve their high scores with very different priorities and questionable means.

Recognizing people or nations for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons can be misleading and ultimately unsustainable. PISA's rankings on their own are useless. The real lessons from PISA are found from researching how each nation achieved their results and then assessing their methods via ethical criteria that is independent of their results. (Things go very wrong when we allow education policy to be driven by circular logic: define effective nations as those who raise test scores, then use test score gains to determine effective nations.)

We need to recognize Finland for doing the right things with their schools for the right reasons, but that means we need to move beyond reducing learning to standardized test scores and PISA rankings. Until then, we run the risk of chasing high performing nations that score well and rank high with methods that are less than enviable.

Assessing the quality of education by how many questions we answer correctly is kind of like judging a life by the number of breaths we take -- both are clear, simple and wrong.

Reading the PISA Tea Leaves: Who is responsible for Finland's Decline and the Asian Magic

This was written by Yong Zhao who is Presidential Chair, Associate Dean Global and Online Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way and World Class Learners. He blogs here and tweets here. This post first appeared here.

by Yong Zhao

“Finland Fell from the Tip of PISA,” says the headline of a story in the largest subscription newspaperHelsingin Sanomat in Finland, according to Google Translate (I think it should be
Finland Falls from the Top of PISA). I don’t know Finnish but thanks to Google Translate, I was able to understand most of the story. The gist is that Finland has fallen from the top in the current round of PISA.

This is big news, with significant implications not only for the Finns but also for the rest of the world that has been looking at Finland as the model education system since 2001 when Finland was number one in the first round of PISA. Although results of the 2012 PISA won’t be officially unveiled until 10am GMT, December 3rd.the leaked story, published on November 30th, has already sent the Finns and others to speculate the causes of Finland’s decline. “The reasons are seen in the teachers’ continuing education in poor and outdated teaching methods and technology,” writes the Helsingin Sanomat story (courtesy of Google Translate).

While the Finns are right to be concerned about their education, it would be a huge mistake to believe that their education has gotten worse. Finland’s slip in the PISA ranking has little to do with what Finland has or has not done. It has been pushed down by others. In other words, Finland’s education quality as measured by the PISA may have not changed at all and remains strong, but the introduction of other education systems that are even better at taking tests has made Finland appear worse than it really is. In 2000 and 2003 when Finland was number one, only two East Asian education systems were included: Korea and Japan. In 2009, there were seven from Eastern Asia: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Macao. Six out of the seven ranked top 10 in math, five in science and five in reading and Shanghai took number away from Finland. I have not seen the 2012 results yet and will miss the big moment on my way back to the U.S. from Hong Kong, but I can guess, as the Helsingin Sanomat already suggested, the East Asian education systems did very well again, squeezing further Finland down the league table.

An even bigger mistake is to assume that the Asian systems have made significant improvement and surpassed Finland. The Asian systems have always done extremely well in international tests, especially in math. The top scoring education systems in another major international assessment, the TIMSS, have always been Eastern Asian since 1995: Singapore, S. Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. Mainland China has yet to participate in TIMSS.

The 2009 PISA results have already begun to shift the world’s attention away from Finland to Shanghai. I fear that the 2012 PISA will complete that shift and make Shanghai and other East Asian education systems THE model of education because the magic potion that East Asian success in international tests is very poisonous.

The recipe for the East Asian success is actually not that magical. It includes all the elements that have been identified as the symptoms of the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) by the great Finnish education scholar Pasi Sahlberg: Competition, Standardization, Frequent Testing, and Privatization. In East Asian high PISA performing systems, these ingredients are more effectively combined and carried out to an extreme to result in entire societies devoted to ensure that their youngsters become excellent test takers.

While the East Asian systems may enjoy being at the top of international tests, they are not happy at all with the outcomes of their education. They have recognized the damages of their education for a long time and have taken actions to reform their systems. Recently, the Chinese government again issued orders to lesson student academic burden by reducing standardized tests and written homework in primary schools. The Singaporeans have been working reforming its curriculum and examination systems. The Koreans are working on implementing a “free semester” for the secondary students. Eastern Asian parents are willing and working hard to spend their life’s savings finding spots outside these “best” education systems. Thus international schools, schools that follow the less successful Western education model, have been in high demand and continue to grow in East Asia. Tens of thousands of Chinese and Korean parents send their children to study in Australia, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. It is no exaggeration to say that that the majority of the parents in China would send their children to an American school instead of keeping them in the “best performing” Chinese system, if they had the choice.

The East Asian education systems may have a lot to offer to those who want a compliant and homogenous test takers. For those who are looking for true high quality education, Finland would still be a better place. But for an education that can truly cultivate creative, entrepreneurial and globally competent citizens needed in the 21st century, you will have to invent it. Global benchmarking can only give you the best of the past. For the best of the future, you will have do the invention yourself.

(May append later. Gotta run to the airport)

Braving the Media Storm of PISA 2012

You can't talk about education without tripping over PISA. On December 3, the 2012 PISA results will be released, and there will be a considerable amount of media attention and drooling. This was written by Tim Walker who is an American teaching in Finland. Tim has an insightful blog titled Taught by Finland. Tim tweets here. You can find this post on Tim's blog here.

By Tim Walker

There's a storm brewing. In less than 24 hours, the latest PISA results from the 2012 data will be revealed on Tuesday, December 3, 2013 at 10:00 AM (GMT).

Undoubtedly, there will be lots of must-read stories swirling around. Many tales of winners and losers. With certainty, Finland will get its fair share of heat.

On Saturday, Helsingin Sanomat, a well-respected Finnish newspaper, reported that Finland dropped from the Top 10 in math from PISA 2012, noting that Estonia’s 15-year-olds outperformed Finland’s.

Updated: 2:20 PM (GMT), Monday, December 2, 2013

Over the next few days, I will be compiling a list of recent, important articles (concerning the results of PISA 2012) on this page. I'm looking for information that helps us navigate the tricky waters of international test scores, giving us lots of food for thought. Please share other PISA-related articles as I will be regularly adding to this list in the days ahead:

“PISA’S China Problem” – The Brookings Institution

“’PISA Day’ – An Ideological and Hyperventilated Exercise” – The Economic Policy Institute

“The Fetishization of International Test Scores” – Washington Post

“Don’t Let PISA League Tables Dictate Schooling” – The Guardian

‘”Prepare Pupils in England for International Tests’” – BBC News

The most important problem facing American children today

If we don't properly identify the real problems that plague our schools, and more generally our society, we risk implementing solutions that actually make the problems worse.

If we misinterpret standardized test scores as our window into the quality of our schools, rather than as a reflection for affluence and opportunity, we risk waging war on teachers and schools when we should be waging war on poverty.

Here is a graphic that I first saw on Valerie Strauss's blog the Answer Sheet where she asks the question, "What is the most important problem facing American children?" She writes:

According to the Academic Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is the effects of poverty on the health and well being of young people. But, they concede, there is no sustained focus on childhood poverty, or a unified pediatric voice speaking on the problem, or a comprehensive approach to solving it.

Inevitably when we discuss poverty and education, a couple of questions come up:

Does this mean poor people can't learn? No, this does not mean poor people can't learn. All people can learn and people living in poverty are people, too. What this means is that children suffering from the affects of poverty have their potential growth and health stunted. To say that poverty matters for children who are trying to learn is not to make excuses -- it's acknowledging the truth. 

Does this mean we have to choose between providing good schools and waging war on poverty? No, we do not have to choose between good schools and an equitable society, but let's not pretend we are doing enough to reduce the number of children in poverty. (1 in 5 in United States; 1 in 10 in Alberta; 1 in 25 in Finland) And let's not pretend that education alone can lift people out of poverty.

People who say poverty is no excuse are making excuses about doing nothing about poverty.

What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools?

This was written by Pasi Sahlberg who is the author of “ Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland? You can follow Pasi Sahlbeg on Twitter here and read his blog here. This post first appeared here.

by Pasi Sahlberg

Many governments are under political and economic pressure to turn around their school systems for higher rankings in the international league tables. Education reforms often promise quick fixes within one political term. Canada, South Korea, Singapore and Finland are commonly used models for the nations that hope to improve teaching and learning in their schools. In search of a silver bullet, reformers now turn their eyes on teachers, believing that if only they could attract “the best and the brightest” into the teaching profession, the quality of education would improve.

“Teacher effectiveness” is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. This concept hence applies only to those teachers who teach subjects on which students are tested.Teacher effectiveness plays a particular role in education policies of nations where alternative pathways exist to the teaching profession.

In the United States, for example, there are more than 1,500 different teacher-preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Singapore and Finland only one academically rigorous teacher education program is available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor South Korea has fast-track options into teaching, such as Teach for America or Teach First in Europe. Teacher quality in high-performing countries is a result of careful quality control at entry into teaching rather than measuring teacher effectiveness in service.

In recent years the “no excuses”’ argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children’s learning in school. Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies.

For me the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being. Among 29 wealthy countries, the United States landed second from the last in child poverty and held a similarly poor position in “child life satisfaction.” Teachers alone, regardless of how effective they are, will not be able to overcome the challenges that poor children bring with them to schools everyday.

Finland is not a fan of standardization in education. However, teacher education in Finland is carefully standardized. All teachers must earn a master’s degree at one of the country’s research universities. Competition to get into these teacher education programs is tough; only “the best and the brightest” are accepted. As a consequence, teaching is regarded as an esteemed profession, on par with medicine, law or engineering. There is another “teacher quality” checkpoint at graduation from School of Education in Finland. Students are not allowed to earn degrees to teach unless they demonstrate that they possess knowledge, skills and morals necessary to be a successful teacher.

But education policies in Finland concentrate more on school effectiveness than on teacher effectiveness. This indicates that what schools are expected to do is an effort of everyone in a school, working together, rather than teachers working individually.

In many under-performing nations, I notice, three fallacies of teacher effectiveness prevail.

The first belief is that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” This statement became known in education policies through the influential McKinsey & Company report titled “How the world’s best performing school systems come out on top”. Although the report takes a broader view on enhancing the status of teachers by better pay and careful recruitment this statement implies that the quality of an education system is defined by its teachers. By doing this, the report assumes that teachers work independently from one another. But teachers in most schools today, in the United States and elsewhere, work as teams when the end result of their work is their joint effort.

The role of an individual teacher in a school is like a player on a football team: all teachers are vital, but the culture of the school is even more important for the quality of the school. Team sports offer numerous examples of teams that have performed beyond expectations because of leadership, commitment and spirit. Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team USA certainly exceeded the quality of its players. So can an education system.

The second fallacy is that “the most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers.” This is the driving principle of former D.C. schools chancellor Michele Rhee and many other “reformers” today. This false belief is central to the “no excuses” school of thought. If a teacher was the most important single factor in improving quality of education, then the power of a school would indeed be stronger than children’s family background or peer influences in explaining student achievement in school.

Research on what explains students’ measured performance in school remains mixed. A commonly used conclusion is that 10% to 20% of the variance in measured student achievement belongs to the classroom, i.e., teachers and teaching, and a similar amount is attributable to schools, i.e., school climate, facilities and leadership. In other words, up to two-thirds of what explains student achievement is beyond the control of schools, i.e., family background and motivation to learn.

Over thirty years of systematic research on school effectiveness and school improvement reveals a number of characteristics that are typical of more effective schools. Most scholars agree that effective leadership is among the most important characteristics of effective schools, equally important to effective teaching. Effective leadership includes leader qualities, such as being firm and purposeful, having shared vision and goals, promoting teamwork and collegiality and frequent personal monitoring and feedback. Several other characteristics of more effective schools include features that are also linked to the culture of the school and leadership: Maintaining focus on learning, producing a positive school climate, setting high expectations for all, developing staff skills, and involving parents. In other words, school leadership matters as much as teacher quality.

The third fallacy is that “If any children had three or four great teachers in a row, they would soar academically, regardless of their racial or economic background, while those who have a sequence of weak teachers will fall further and further behind”. This theoretical assumption is included in influential policy recommendations, for instance in “Essential Elements of Teacher Policy in ESEA: Effectiveness, Fairness and Evaluation” by the Center for American Progress to the U.S. Congress. Teaching is measured by the growth of student test scores on standardized exams.

This assumption presents a view that education reform alone could overcome the powerful influence of family and social environment mentioned earlier. It insists that schools should get rid of low-performing teachers and then only hire great ones. This fallacy has the most practical difficulties. The first one is about what it means to be a great teacher. Even if this were clear, it would be difficult to know exactly who is a great teacher at the time of recruitment. The second one is, that becoming a great teacher normally takes five to ten years of systematic practice. And determining the reliably of ‘effectiveness’ of any teacher would require at least five years of reliable data. This would be practically impossible.

Everybody agrees that the quality of teaching in contributing to learning outcomes is beyond question. It is therefore understandable that teacher quality is often cited as the most important in-school variable influencing student achievement. But just having better teachers in schools will not automatically improve students’ learning outcomes.

Lessons from high-performing school systems, including Finland, suggest that we must reconsider how we think about teaching as a profession and what is the role of the school in our society.

First, standardization should focus more on teacher education and less on teaching and learning in schools. Singapore, Canada and Finland all set high standards for their teacher-preparation programs in academic universities. There is no Teach for Finland or other alternative pathways into teaching that wouldn’t include thoroughly studying theories of pedagogy and undergo clinical practice. These countries set the priority to have strict quality control before anybody will be allowed to teach – or even study teaching! This is why in these countries teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation are not such controversial topics as they are in the U.S. today.

Second, the toxic use of accountability for schools should be abandoned. Current practices in many countries that judge the quality of teachers by counting their students’ measured achievement only is in many ways inaccurate and unfair. It is inaccurate because most schools’ goals are broader than good performance in a few academic subjects. It is unfair because most of the variation of student achievement in standardized tests can be explained by out-of-school factors. Most teachers understand that what students learn in school is because the whole school has made an effort, not just some individual teachers. In the education systems that are high in international rankings, teachers feel that they are empowered by their leaders and their fellow teachers. In Finland, half of surveyed teachers responded that they would consider leaving their job if their performance would be determined by their student’s standardized test results.

Third, other school policies must be changed before teaching becomes attractive to more young talents. In many countries where teachers fight for their rights, their main demand is not more money but better working conditions in schools. Again, experiences from those countries that do well in international rankings suggest that teachers should have autonomy in planning their work, freedom to run their lessons the way that leads to best results, and authority to influence the assessment of the outcomes of their work. Schools should also be trusted in these key areas of the teaching profession.

To finish up, let’s do one theoretical experiment. We transport highly trained Finnish teachers to work in, say, Indiana in the United States (and Indiana teachers would go to Finland). After five years—assuming that the Finnish teachers showed up fluent in English and that education policies in Indiana would continue as planned—we would check whether these teachers have been able to improve test scores in state-mandated student assessments.

I argue that if there were any gains in student achievement they would be marginal. Why? Education policies in Indiana and many other states in the United States create a context for teaching that limits (Finnish) teachers to use their skills, wisdom and shared knowledge for the good of their students’ learning. Actually, I have met some experienced Finnish-trained teachers in the United States who confirm this hypothesis. Based on what I have heard from them, it is also probable that many of those transported Finnish teachers would be already doing something else than teach by the end of their fifth year – quite like their American peers.

Conversely, the teachers from Indiana working in Finland—assuming they showed up fluent in Finnish—stand to flourish on account of the freedom to teach without the constraints of standardized curricula and the pressure of standardized testing; strong leadership from principals who know the classroom from years of experience as teachers; a professional culture of collaboration; and support from homes unchallenged by poverty.



====================

UNICEF, 2013. Child well-being in rich countries. A comparative overview. Innocenti Report Card 11. Florence: UNICEF.

McKinsey & Company (2010). “How the world’s best performing school systems come out on top”. London: McKinsey & Co.

Teddlie, C. (2010). The Legacy of the School Effectiveness Research Tradition, in A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, M. Fullan & D. Hopkins (Eds.). The Second International Handbook of Educational Change. Dordrecht: Springer.

Finnish teacher on what makes Finland so good

Test your public education savy

This was written by Susan Ohanian and Stephen Krashen who are advocates for progressive, public education. Ohanion blogs here and tweets here. Krashen's website is here and tweets here. This post was originally found here.

Despite my disdain for multiple choice tests, I have to admit that this may be the only meaningful way to use them.

by Susan Ohanian and Stephen Krashen

1. Who said “Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans. That education system was a disaster.”

a) Rush Limbaugh
b) Pat Robinson
c) Editor at The Onion
d) Bill O’Reilly
e) U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

2. US international test scores aren’t at the top of the world because:

a) we lack common standards and valid tests.
b) many teachers are not doing their job.
c) nearly 25% of American children live in poverty.
d) American children are not interested in hard study.
e) parents don’t take an interest in children’s education.

3. A notable feature of education in Finland, the country scoring highest on international tests, is:

a) universal pre-school emphasizes an early start in skill development.
b) children in grade school have a play break every 45 minutes.
c) a system of annual national standardized tests informs teachers of every child's skill attainment.
d) there are no teacher unions to cripple reform.
e) corporate leaders have taken a leadership role in school policy.

4. Middle class American students who attend well-funded schools

a) achieve high scores on international tests, among the highest in the world.
b) don’t read as much as kids used to.
c) aren’t learning enough math and science.
d) don’t do enough analytical writing.
e) lack competitive drive.

5. 1.6 million children in the U.S.

a) have teachers who are not highly qualified.
b) are overweight.
c) live in single-parent families.
d) should be held back in school.
e) are homeless.

6. Children who live in poverty in the US

a) are protected by a comprehensive social welfare safety net.
b) need a very structured curriculum.
c) are more likely to attend a school with poorly supported libraries than are middle class children.
d) have the same chance for school success as other students—if their parents support education.
e) need vouchers to attend better schools.

7. Common Core Standards were developed because

a) parents worry that US children score far below other countries on international tests.
b) teachers lack the skills to craft adequate curriculum and wanted help.
c) state departments of education asked for them.
d) of grass-roots concern that children need special tools to compete in the Global Economy.
e) the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation paid for them.

8. Common Core Standards in literacy were written by

a) classroom teachers.
b) child psychologists.
c) university researchers.
d) business leaders.
e) a lawyer who specializes in "standards-driven reform" and someone whose background is in Management Consulting, who once tutored children while studying at Yale.

9. The new Common Core tests

a) let the teachers know exactly what each student needs to learn next.
b) give parents evidence teachers are doing their job.
c) ensure that standards are being met.
d) give principals a fair way to evaluate teachers.
e) make fiscal demands many districts cannot meet.

10. The new online feature of Common Core testing

a) will reduce administration costs.
b) will streamline student evaluation.
c) offers new opportunities for creativity.
d) will lead to more individualized learning.
e) means students will be tested many more times each year.

ANSWERS

1. E

“Duncan: ‘Katrina was the best thing for New Orleans school system,’” Jan. 29, 2010
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/01/duncan-katrina-was-the-best-thing-for-new- orleans-schools/

2. C

“Measuring Child Poverty,” UNICEF, May 2012
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc10_eng.pdf

3. B

“Finland Schools Flourish in Freedom and Flexibility,” The Guardian, Dec. 5, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/finland-schools-curriculum-teaching

4. A

“PISA 2009 Reading Test Results: The US does quite well, controlling for SES. And maybe
American scores are “just right.”
http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/PISA_2009-US_Scores_Just_Right.pdf

5. E

http://www.familyhomelessness.org/children.php?p=ts

6. C

Di Loreto, C., and Tse, L. 1999. Seeing is believing: Disparity in books in two Los Angeles area public libraries. School Library Quarterly 17(3): 31-36; Duke, N. 2000. For the rich it's richer: Print experiences and environments offered to children in very low and very high-socioeconomic status first-grade classrooms. American Educational Research Journal 37(2): 441-478; Neuman, S.B. and Celano, D. 2001. Access to print in low-income and middle-income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 1, 8-26.

7. E

“Is the Gates Foundation Involved in bribery,” July 23, 2010
http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-gates-foundation-involved-in-bribery.html

“JoLLE Forum--Rotten to the (Common) Core,” Nov. 1, 2012
http://www.susanohanian.org/core.php?id=364

8. E

David Coleman bio; Susan Pimentel bio
http://about.collegeboard.org/leadership/president

http://www.nagb.org/who-we-are/members/bios/b_pimentel.html

9. E

“Federal Mandates on Local Education: Costs and Consequences--Yes, it's a Race, but is it in the Right Direction?”
http://www.newpaltz.edu/crreo/brief_8_education.pdf

10. E

“Common Core Assessments”
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/

http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/25/stephen-krashen-how-much-testing/

Why Finland's public schools are so successful

Check out this interview with Pasi Sahlberg on CBC's Sunday Edition with Michael Enright.

New Hope for School Integration

From All Walks of Life: New Hope for School Integration is a powerful article on school integration and diversity by Richard Kahlenberg. If you are interested in Inclusion, then I think you'll find this enlightening.

Here are a few highlights:

• Racial integration is a very important aim, but if one's goal is boosting academic achievement what really matters is economic integration.

• Finland - often held out as an education success story - had the lowest degree of socioeconomic segregation of 57 countries participating in PISA.

• The only educational intervention known to have a greater return on investment than socioeconomic integration is very high-quality early childhood education.

• The KIPP model, which relies heavily on self-selection and attrition, reinforces the idea that the peer environment may matter a great deal.

• Many families now believe - as do virtually all leading colleges and universities - racial, ethnic, and income diversity enriches the classroom.

• In high poverty- schools, a child is surrounded by classmates who are more likely to act out, more likely to move during the school year, and less likely to have large vocabularies.

• The major problem with American schools is not teachers or their unions, but poverty and economic segregation.

New GERM outbreak in Scotland

This was written by Niall MacKinnon who is a Scottish school principal Niall MacKinnon highlights the need for rigorous GERM infection control measures in education reform programs. You can read Niall MacKinnon's extended version on this article here.

By Niall MacKinnon

In his speech to the Scottish Learning Festival this September, cabinet secretary Michael Russell claimed that GERM is not for Scotland. The Global Education Reform Movement is a concept of Finnish educationalist Pasi Sahlberg, presented in his recent book Finnish Lessons. The features of GERM are standardizing teaching and learning, a focus on literacy and numeracy, teaching a prescribed curriculum, management models from the corporate world and test-based accountability and control.

Scotland’s recent tightly controlled educational landscape of attainment targets, performance indicators and inspection judgements was an example of GERM. But Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) opened up a different pathway in the central “four capacities” concept, emphasizing and integrating wider focuses of linkage and personal development in revisioning pedagogy. CfE showed close affinity with the Finnish Way, outlined by Sahlberg as the antidote to GERM.  Finland encouraged risk-taking, learning from the past, owning innovations, shared responsibility and trust through professional dialogue. A central feature of decluttering for CfE was to focus on innovative approaches, emphasizing practice innovation and local professionalism, termed ‘building the curriculum’.

But just as this was coming together, linking proactive innovation, evaluation, and school systems to CfE, it fell apart. This was because of layers of prescription to different performance criteria in new multiple audit schedules, inspection templates and standards and quality reporting, to non-CfE criteria. The main emphasis was not exploring pedagogy, but micro-specification to serve the needs of external control and standardized calibration of schools. Then came hundreds of  “Es and Os” (experiences and outcomes) as a curriculum specification ‘painting by numbers’ kit. CfE was further lashed down to seven “required characteristics of successful implementation” framed in a product model of curriculum, delivery model of schooling and behaviorist model of audit. Self-evaluation split two ways, one as evaluation taking the concepts, principles and purposes, applying them evidentially yet discursively – GERM-free. The other, calibrating audit prescription to fixed, outdated notions and applying these in absolutist terms – GERM. This set up a huge conflict within CfE in Scotland, one which Sahlberg took from me in the chapter defining GERM in Finnish Lessons:

“Niall MacKinnon, who teaches at Plockton Primary School, makes a compelling appeal for “locally owned questions and purposes in realising practice within the broader national policy and practice frameworks.” He gets right to the point of how GERM affects teachers and schools: “There is the real practical danger that without an understanding of rationale and theoretical bases for school development, practitioners may be judged by auditors on differing underlying assumptions to their own developmental pathways, and the universalistic grading schemas come to be applied as a mask or front giving pseudoscientific veneer to imposed critical judgments which are nothing more than expressions of different views and models of education. Through the mechanism of inspection, a difference of conceptual viewpoint, which could prompt debate and dialogue in consideration of practice, is eliminated in judgmental and differential power relations. One view supplants another. Command and control replaces mutuality, dialogue and conceptual exploration matched to practice development. Those who suffer are those innovating and bringing in new ideas.” ” (p 104)

The paragraph came from my 2011 paper ‘The Urgent Needs for New Approaches in School Evaluation to enable Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence’ in the international journal Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. My argument there was that specifications, grading and judgementalism destroy conceptual innovation and local practice professionalism, thereby negating CfE. Torridon Primary School and its headteacher Anne Macrae was my inspiration for that paragraph, now the case exemplar of GERM worldwide in Finnish Lessons.

Sahlberg shows how Finnish education placed central focus on professional dialogue, enabling pedagogy to link modern innovations to a long history of educational ideas. The central conceptual genius of CfE was the “four capacities” concept. It is not a slogan but a clarion call to get to know our pupils, and construct learning pathways by reaching out and revealing the dispositions latent in their potentials. These extend in so many ways out beyond conventional notions of learning, set in terms of delivery, targets and specifications.

We need to unpack learning, garner systemic understanding and enable formative development progression, for pupils, educators and institutions working together, not a “clear plan from A to B” as the Scottish schools’ inspectorate currently mandates. Scotland is now in the midst of GERM warfare between specifications compliance and pedagogic innovation, fought out over the morale and professionalism of Scotland’s teachers. As Dr Sahlberg said of GERM on his blog (30 June) “As a consequence, schools get ill, teachers don’t feel well, and kids learn less”.

Sadly GERM is for Scotland, and the case study of GERM is Scotland. But it could so readily not be, once this is ‘seen’ and something done about it, or rather undone, simply by removing the specificatory shroud and control freakery of judgmental absolutism to outdated notions. Let us ‘build the curriculum’ as intended and envisaged.

The central lesson from Finnish Lessons is not what Finland did, but rather what Finland did NOT do to its education system. “Transformational” change in the nature of curriculum and its realization in school education, which Scotland “says” it is undertaking, is not going to come about without similarly transformational change in the means of getting there.

What if America enlisted as much creativity in rethinking standardized testing as Mitt Romney has placed in paying his taxes?

Essentially, here is what Nikhil Goyal asked Mitt Romney:

Given that standardized testing in America has increased to historic levels and has had negative effects such as stripping billions of dollars from classroom budgets, increases in teaching to the test, and decreases in creativity, how would you as President change this trend?

Here's a summary of Romney's 3 minute response:

Because I know no other way, I'm not going to change anything about standardized testing, so you better just get used to it. In fact, I plan on intensifying standardized testing to rank and sort not only students but teachers, too. 

Let's examine this video of Mitt Romney and his take on education and testing more closely.

ROMNEY: First of all, you will find through out your life that there are tests.

There is a big difference between preparing kids for a life of tests and preparing them for the tests of life. Defenders of standardized, fill-in-the-bubble, forced-choice examinations have the audacity to cite a 'real world' need for such examinations, and yet standardized testing is what constitutes an amazingly contrived and unrealistic form of assessment.

ROMNEY: I don't know a way to evaluate the progress of students other than by evaluating it through testing of some kind or another.

At this point, I'm prepared to give Romney full credit for admitting his ignorance and incompetence around education and testing. At least he's being honest. It is very likely that Romney actually knows no other way than standardized testing -- but this is not an argument for testing, it's an indictment of his limited understanding and exposure to more authentic forms of assessment such as project-based learning, performance assessments and portfolios. Unlike policymakers and politicians who see education from 30,000 feet up, progressive educators engage in this kind of assessment everyday. Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it's the only one you have. If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail; If the only tool you have is a standardized test, every child looks like a number 2 pencil. If Romney truly wanted to broaden his understanding for how to assess learning, maybe he should talk to a teacher.

ROMNEY: If there are tests that are ineffective or that measure things that are not really relevant, obviously you try and improve the test, but you'll still have an SAT when you graduate from high school.

Too many people assume that standardized tests measure the quality of education. This assumption gets us into a lot of trouble because standardized tests were never intended to serve this purpose. Standardized tests are a tool for ranking individual students not rating whole classrooms, schools or nations. There's also strong evidence to suggest that standardized tests are really measuring out-of-school factors such as affluence and poverty (Here's an American example and a Canadian example). A little known fact is that the SAT actually stands for nothing. Clinging on to these blunt instruments and merely tinkering and refining them is the equivalent to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's also important to note that real learning is not found in teacher grades or student tests. The best way to know if a child is learning is to watch them learn. There is no substitute. Testsandgrades merely offer a crutch to those who wish to judge schools without ever spending time in schools. It's important to note that any intelligent conversation about standardized tests would have to include understanding Campbell's Law and the MacNamara Fallacy, both of which Romney appears to have no clue.

ROMNEY: You'll find that through out your life that there are going to be tests. We always complain about them. I complain about them when I was a student, and we don't like tests but there is really no other way we've found out to determine whether a student is succeeding or not succeeding, or frankly whether the teacher is succeeding or not succeeding. So I don't have a better model.

The costs of standardized testing and victims of standardized testing are prevalent. Shrugging or snickering at them as if they are like the weather is not a responsible or professional position to take. Martin Luther King Jr once said, "The day we see truth and do not speak is the day we begin to die." Apathy is runs rampant enough in our society, we certainly don't need our leaders to be also. Some people see standardized testing like death and taxes where resistance is futile. But I wish Romney would see standardized testing more like his taxes. What if America enlisted as much creativity in rethinking standardized testing as Romney has placed in paying his taxes?

ROMNEY: If teaching to the test means learning how to read and write and learning how to do basic math skills then there's nothing terribly wrong with that. 

Testing is not teaching. Writing a test is not learning. Tests can only measure a sample of what we would ever want our children to learn and become. What is on the test might not be as important as what is not on the test. As a parent and an educator I want my children to grow up and live a happy and meaningful life that is full of creativity, empathy, family, courage, integrity, honesty, curiosity, motivation, responsibility, citizenry, leadership, innovation, ingenuity and love. This is but a small list of very important things that standardized tests ignore which is why encouraging teaching to the test needlessly narrows the educational opportunities that we want and need for our children. Proponents of teaching to the test are either irresponsibly ignorant or dangerously deceptive -- either way, they have no business being our leaders.

ROMNEY: What I was concerned about before we had these kinds of tests is that you might have faculty members go off in a completely different tangent from the basic math, english and science skills our kids need to succeed.

Well, you've heard it from Romney himself. He sees standardized tests as a way of managing and disciplining teachers. Even if you are a teacher-hater and see no problem with this kind of adversarial relationship between politicians and teachers, you can't ignore the fact that standardized tests were never created to serve this function.

ROMNEY: I'm not going to replace testing. I'd love to improve it.

This tells you everything you need to know about where Romney wants to take American education. Heck, even the Chinese are moving away from their love affair with testing. This also goes to show that the standardized test and punish brand of accountability is not a daring departure from the status quo -- in fact, it is the status quo that has been sucking the life out of classrooms for decades. Romney is a brilliant example of what I call the American education contradiction: Use standardized test scores to show that public education in the United States is failing but then implement market-based reforms that are almost entirely contradictory to the reforms and policies found in high achieving countries.

ROMNEY: I'd love to have the students grade the teachers at the end of the year, as opposed to just the other way around so that teachers get feedback.

Testsandgrades are a primitive form of feedback. Assigning people a score or a grade does nothing to inform them of what they are doing well, or what they can improve -- all they can do is rank and sort. Testsandgrades are not about feedback or learning, they are about manipulation. Romney likes testing because he can use testing to manipulate and control the public in a way that undermines public education and teachers' unions.

ROMNEY: I hope students are very involved in the political process and in the process in the quality of your education.

Ultimately, I find it sadly ironic that Romney can look 17 year old Nikhil Goyal in the eye and say that he hopes students get involved more in shaping their education system, but then spend 3 minutes lecturing him on how, as President of the United States, he would merely ignore and intensify the ills of standardized testing -- and that Nikhil, and other kids like him, should just get used to it.

Under what circumstances would this be deemed exemplary leadership?