Innovative educators know that looking to Finland as the golden standard for education because of their test scores makes little sense for a number of reasons. This includes the fact that if we adjust for poverty and speakers of other languages in our nation, their results are no more remarkable than ours. Internationally, these tests are no more than a measure of poverty and ability to speak the national language in any given country. But even when we take the tests out the picture, we should recognize Finland because 80% of the taxpayers trust their public school system and 75% of the citizens think that their publicly funded education system is their most significant accomplishment since independence. Those are laudable accountability measures to hope to live up to. Pasi Sahlberg, author of the 2013 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award winning book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? warns us, that even if we wanted a system like theirs, we probably couldn’t have it because many of the successful aspects of Finland's education system are rooted in cultures and values that are a not a part of the U.S. For example, high levels of trust in people and institutions, pursuit of equality and fairness in society and life, and willingness to pay taxes for common good. But they do suggest, that despite this, Sahlberg says we can learn some concrete lessons. These lessons are built on the premise that rather than over-standardize teaching and learning in schools by prescribed curricula and frequent high-stakes testing, three other aspects of education should be standardized instead.
Here they are:
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