The newest issue of The Economist has a piece on international comparisons that offers a couple interesting lessons. The first is to be wary of them. In a recent analysis of Finland's PISA scores, which routinely top those of all other comers, Jarkko Hautam??ki and his colleagues at Helsinki University found
only one big policy element that could easily be replicated elsewhere: early and energetic intervention for struggling pupils. Many of the other ingredients for success that they identify--orthography, geography and history--have nothing to do with how schools are run, or what happens in classrooms.In Finnish, exceptionally, each letter makes a single logical sound and there are no irregular words. That makes learning to read easy. An economy until recently dependent on peasant farming in harsh latitudes has shaped a stoic national character and an appetite for self-improvement. Centuries of foreign rule (first Swedes, then Russians) further entrenched education as the centrepiece of national identity. So hard work and good behaviour are the norm; teaching tempts the best graduates (nearly nine out of ten would-be teachers are turned down).
So American education wonks are missing the point when they say, for instance, that we should emulate Finland and make teaching more tempting to college graduates.
Some argue, though, that PISA has at least been successful inasmuch as it has increased the pressure on countries to improve their education systems to avoid humiliation.
[Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of education research], says international comparisons teach a crucial lesson: what is possible. "In 1995, at the first meeting of OECD ministers I attended, every country boasted of its own success and its own brilliant reforms. Now international comparisons make it clear who is failing. There is no place to hide."
This should sound familiar, of course, as most people argue that NCLB's only clear success so far has been to shine a light on failing schools and get people worked up enough to do something about it.
