What Can We Learn From Finland?

What Can We Learn From Finland?

I don't know anything but the basics on Finland: highest PISA scores, virtually no high stakes testing, low poverty rate, low racial diversity, selective teaching profession, etc.

According to me, what is the biggest difference between education in Finland and education in America? I think the selectivity of the teaching profession makes a big difference. I don't usually walk around insulting the intelligence of teachers - overall I think teachers are a creative, dedicated, smart group of people - but I have been in classes with or worked with a fair number of people who are exceptions. I suppose doctors or people of any profession might feel the same way - that there are people about whom you wonder, "how did they make it into this profession?" Having taken the entrance exams and college courses required to obtain a teaching lisence, I don't really wonder. Just about anyone who wants to become a teacher can. I mean, there are ads on the side of my facebook account that say "get a teaching license." Come on now.

Finland is selective and then gives its teachers opportunities to feed their ambition, their creativity, and their desire for respect. The United States does none of those things. So, not only are we not selective - but we make the profession unattractive to those driven, high-achieving people who manage to find their way into the profession on their own.

I also think the vast difference in poverty level impacts student achievement. I come from an upper-middle class family and experienced very few obstacles to making it to school on time, every day, with nothing to worry about aside from doing well in school. Not only am I faced with very different realities for my students, but I actually experience them within my own family. I am a teacher, for goodness sake, and have had to take days off of school for the types of "family emergencies" that I believe higher income students rarely experience. I have spent days at school (in my teacher role) unable to concentrate because of a "family emergency." I have been unsure about how to afford child care, how to maintain reliable transportation, etc. My situation is not dire by any means, but I have had a taste of some of the barriers that must be overcome by some of my students. And I know that my peers and I typically didn't face those type of situations while growing up in our suburban neighborhoods. For the 22% of American students who live in poverty and the countless more who live just above the poverty line - every day may provide a new obstacle to achieving their potential. Overcoming these obstacles will take more than emulating Finland's public education system.

Overall, I'm of the mindset that it's inappropriate to take something that works in 1 situation and assume that it will also work in all other situations. This is true for canned curricula, education legislation, and public school structures. That's not to say there aren't lessons to be learned, but I believe Americans will have to figure out a system of education that works for us and our unique situation. Just because Finland doesn't use high stakes testing doesn't mean we shouldn't. It's important to note that public schools can be successful without high stakes tests, but it's also important to remember that we didn't even really know the extent of America's achievement gap until we examined our high stakes test scores.

Daily Wonderings on Teacher Evaluations and Data

Yesterday I attended an event to discuss current ideas about effective teaching and the recommendations for NM's future teacher evaluation system.  Here are the recommendations.  For the record, I'm OK with student SBA performance making up 50% of my teacher evaluation.  I do think, to a great extent, that although test scores aren't perfect, kids who score well on the test also tend to possess even the skills that aren't tested and that will help a student be successful later in life.

What we didn't have a chance to talk about in our discussion, and what I wonder about day-in and day-out, is the "so what?"  What if a teacher gets a bad evaluation?  The evaluations may play the useful role of identifying teachers who are more and less effective, but most schools kind of already know who's who.  Will the evaluations be the documentation that convinces the teacher herself that she needs to be developed?  That gets the ball rolling?  And then WHAT WILL THE DEVELOPMENT LOOK LIKE?  Is there any consensus out there about what types of development will actually make teachers more effective on a day-to-day basis?  Who is going to hold the teacher accountable?  Colleagues?  Principals?  How can teachers help one another become more effective?

It's not going to happen that once I realize that my value-added test scores aren't equivalent to 1 year's growth, I think "oh, I'd better start doing my best now."  I think MOST teachers are already doing what they think is best for their students.  And it's really going to take some work to make a difference in the practice of those teachers who are doing their best and still aren't making 1 year's growth.

I also wanted to remark on something that happened today at my school: one of the college engagement directors ran a report that highlighted all of the students who were failing 1 and then 2 or more classes.  And I was astounded.  Never before, despite having had electronic grade books for years now, has someone in one of my schools run an analysis of students' grades.  How simple and how silly that this is the first time something like that has come across my desk.  And I bet there are many other schools out there that have never run a similar report, or really any report that helps teachers meaningfully look at student data.

Although SBA data has been used as a reason to blame the teaching profession for the ills of the world, data in and of itself is not something to be feared.  As long as we keep in mind that students are people and not just numbers, we shouldn't be afraid of data.  It can help us see the forest from the trees in a way that day-to-day teaching just can't.

The Test is Not to Blame

Janet Murguia: Failing Schools--Not Just a Label, A Fact

My Response (I tried to post this at the Huffington Post, but it was too long... so I just decided to post it here.)

I agree with Ms. Murguia that a great majority of schools that serve primarily low-income and minority schools are failing.  Although NCLB and its associated tests aren't perfect, the law and the tests aren't to be blamed for the achievement gap that exists in our nation. It seems like it's time to move the conversation away from whether NCLB is of merit.  I agree that there are major problems using only standards-based tests to assess our students as well as with the idea that when a student is proficient on such tests, that he/she has achieved everything our nation hopes for in a K-12 education.  It's true.  There are major problems with NCLB. 

But, I believe we do need data that compares schools across the nation.  I believe that we need to keep having the conversation about how to improve schools serving low-income and minority students.  That's why I think we need to focus our conversations more on reform and what reforms will work.  Simply changing or doing away with testing will not fix public schools.  Too much energy is wasted using NCLB as a scapegoat for the problems with public education.  On the other side of the debate, too much energy is also wasted using teachers as scapegoats. 

We have a test, the test is one piece of data that describes how our schools and our students are doing, and we need to see that data as not an end-all-be-all but as a tool to actually help improve things. At the very least, the tests tell us a truth that low-income and minority students have trouble taking these types of tests and probably also have trouble with the reading, writing, and math necessary to get right answers.  Until a better assessment comes along, let's try and come together and face the facts that a very large number of students in our nation have skills that are too low.  Let's try and come together to focus not on the test, but on the reforms necessary to make a difference.

Study Finds Few Links Between Teacher Characteristics, Performance

Study Finds Few Links Between Teacher Characteristics, Performance

A recent study found that certification, advanced credentials, and experience in the classroom have little or no effect on student achievement on math and reading exams. I'm definitely not surprised to find out that certification and advanced credentials have no effect. And I would think experience would only make a difference for the first few years of a teacher's career. So... what DOES affect student achievement? I know that Teach For America has lots of data about the qualities that a person displays (i.e. highly organized, evidence of perseverance, etc.) and the likelihood that a person will make significant gains (2 years growth) with their students. What else is out there? Most colleges of education and alternative licensure programs don't have the luxury of turning away people who don't possess particular qualities. Neither do most school districts - there simply aren't enough qualified applicants.

So, now that we know what doesn't affect student achievement in math and reading - what does? What that can actually be encouraged for those who are already in the teaching profession? Hours per week spent working? Charting students' proficiency on classroom objectives? Co-teaching? Having a strong school leader?

Having seen my own test scores rise about 30% or so over 5 years of teaching, what seemed to make the biggest difference for my students was 1) Just getting better at teaching... sticking with it past those first 2 years, 2) Talking and caring a lot about test scores and paying attention to what types of questions were asked on the state test each year, 3)More or less forcing students to learn skills/content that they didn't learn the first time I taught it in class (by making them come in at lunch or re-do assignments) 4)Being held accountable by high achieving colleagues, TFA staff, and graduate school professors. But those are just guesses. I really don't know what caused my test scores to improve - and I guess that's part of the problem faced by those who study education. It's easy to see whether or not someone has an advanced degree, but what does "talking and caring a lot about test scores" really mean? And would it necessarily work for every teacher who tried it?

And there's always the question - are the test scores really what we're after? Definitively not. They are an approximation of students' progress toward the real outcomes that we want - success in college, skills necessary to obtain a lucrative career, well-rounded and informed citizen. Yet, we can't let our lack of clarity of exactly what results we want and how to measure those results blind us to the achievement gap that exists in our nation.

So as not to end on a hopeless note, I'm going to cast my vote for #4. I think that we need evaluators, coaches, colleagues, principals, graduate school teachers, parents, etc. inside classrooms - pushing teachers and helping teachers (not blaming teachers) to continuously find ways to help their students achieve more.