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Headlines show a world smitten with the Finnish approach:
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How Finland broke every rule — and created a top school system ”
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What Finland Can Teach China about education ”
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What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. Schools ”
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Happy teaching, Happy Learning: 13 Secrets to Finland’s Success ”
But in the 2015 PISA iteration, the results of which were released Monday, Finland continued its slide that was first evident in the 2012 results when the country’s math score dropped out of the top 10 for the first time. The drop-off in math scores from 2009 to 2012 was 2.8 percent. Science scores dropped three percent, reading 1.7 percent.
In the 2015 results, Finland’s scores dropped in all three categories: 11 points in science, 5 points in reading and 10 points in math. Among the other top-performing countries, just Vietnam showed a similar drop-off. All the other top-tier countries’ scores stayed the same or increased slightly. Finland is now ranked 12th in math, fifth in science and fourth in reading.
(All of those rankings are still well ahead of the United States, which has never been in the top 10 in any of the subject categories. In 2015, U.S. students ranked 4oth in math, 25th in science and 24th in reading.)
[On the world stage, U.S. students fall behind]
There are ongoing debates about what PISA results actually say about education systems in different countries and how seriously they should be regarded. But Finland’s high-achieving students were seen, especially by Western countries, as an example to be emulated. Now there are questions about what is causing the drop-off and how it should be addressed.
The Washington Post put some of those questions to Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and leading figure in education policy and the author of the best-selling book, “Finnish Lessons 2.0 What can the world learn from educational change in Finland.”
[When Finnish students visit an American high school, it’s mutual admiration]
Q. What do you think best explains Finland’s drop in the PISA results? Is it that more countries have simply caught up to what Finland was doing, or is there a fundamental change that has taken place in Finland as to how and what children there are learning?
A. It has been difficult to explain why some countries, including Finland, have been performing well in international school system comparisons. It is equally difficult to explain precisely why countries are slipping down in these same charts. When we look at OECD’s PISA results we must always take a broader look than simply the average test scores.
One important dimension is the equity of education, i.e. how fair is the school system for children coming from different backgrounds? Even in this broader perspective there has been a notable decline in Finland’s performance, both in terms of students’ learning outcomes and equity of the education system (as we know now these two dimensions often go hand in hand). I have suggested three main reasons for this decline that started already some 8 or so years ago.
● First, there has been a visible and alarming downward trend in Finnish schoolboys’ educational performance during the past decade. This inconvenient phenomenon is stronger in Finland than in any other OECD country. As a result, Finland is the only country where girls significantly outperform boys not only in reading but also in mathematics and science. One factor that explains this gender gap in school attainment in Finland is related to the diminished role of reading for pleasure among boys. Finland used to have the best primary school readers in the world until the early 2000s, but not anymore. PISA test items rely heavily on test-taker’s reading comprehension. Appearance of handheld technologies such as smartphones among school-aged children in this decade has probably accelerated this trend.
● Second, rapidly increased “screen time” with media is often eating the time spent with books and reading in general. According to some national statistics, most teenagers in Finland spend more than four hours a day on the Internet (not including time with TV) and that the number of heavy Internet and other media users (more than eight hours a day) is increasing just as it is doing in the U.S., Canada and beyond. According to emerging research on how the Internet affects the brain — and thereby learning — suggests three principal consequences: shallower information processing, increased distractibility, and altered self-control mechanisms. If this is true, then there is reason to believe that increasing use of digital technologies for communication, interaction and entertainment will make concentration on complex conceptual issues, like those in mathematics and science, more difficult. Interestingly, most countries are witnessing this same phenomenon of digital distraction among their youth.
● Third, Finland has been living with a very serious economic downturn since 2008 that has affected education more than other public sectors. Sustained austerity has forced most of Finland’s 300+ municipalities to cut spending, merge schools, increase class sizes, and limit access to professional development and school improvement. The most harmful consequence of these fiscal constraints is declining number of support staff, classroom assistants, and special education personnel. Finland’s strength earlier was its relatively small number of low-performing students. Now, the number of those pupils with inadequate performance in reading, mathematics and science is approaching international averages. In Finland this is probably the most significant driver of increasing inequality within education. A Finnish adage for this could go something like this: Equity in education arrives on foot but leaves on horseback. [...]
