America is great in many ways. We are proud, we eat shamelessly large portion sizes, we’re generally accepting of quirks, and we praise entrepreneurship. Our education system, however, is a glaring mark against us. While education reform is a hot topic debate, the right solution never seems to be reached. In “What Americans Keep Ignoring about Finland’s School Success” Anu Partanen evaluates why Finland overshadows almost every other country, including the United States of America, in education. She argues that the U.S has the potential for the same educational success as Finland, but “when it comes to the lessons that Finnish schools have to offer, most discussion seems to be missing the point” (Partanen,2011). She highlights that our focus
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Schools, students, and teachers all compete for the highest scores possible for their own gain. Schools want funding, students want to pass, and teachers want incentive pay and stature. Lists of the top rated schools and their top rated teachers are only an internet search away. Education is a profitable business. Private schools promising even higher educational achievement than the standard public school cater to those that can afford the tuition. It is this unintentional self-service that creates an educational gap and. in sense, the downfall of the American educational system. As Samuli Paronen says, “Real winners do not compete” (Partanen, 2011). Finland is a noticeably smaller country with a smaller immigrant population. While competitiveness and social inequality does create an achievement gap, it is the U.S’s large percentage of immigrants where many place the majority of blame. In the United States, though, schools are run at the state level, which makes the school systems similar in size to Finland. Furthermore, many of our school districts have an even lower percentage of immigrants than Finland yet still perform well below Finland’s success. Immigration and population size is simply an argument that does not hold enough ground to be
Schools, students, and teachers all compete for the highest scores possible for their own gain. Schools want funding, students want to pass, and teachers want incentive pay and stature. Lists of the top rated schools and their top rated teachers are only an internet search away. Education is a profitable business. Private schools promising even higher educational achievement than the standard public school cater to those that can afford the tuition. It is this unintentional self-service that creates an educational gap and. in sense, the downfall of the American educational system. As Samuli Paronen says, “Real winners do not compete” (Partanen, 2011). Finland is a noticeably smaller country with a smaller immigrant population. While competitiveness and social inequality does create an achievement gap, it is the U.S’s large percentage of immigrants where many place the majority of blame. In the United States, though, schools are run at the state level, which makes the school systems similar in size to Finland. Furthermore, many of our school districts have an even lower percentage of immigrants than Finland yet still perform well below Finland’s success. Immigration and population size is simply an argument that does not hold enough ground to be