Tracy Tasso

Prof. Sonia Apgar Begert

English 102

25 May 2015

Literature Review

U.S. school performance is always a concern for parents, educators, and those who wish for intelligent adults able to succeed in today’s world.  It has been shown for many years that America’s schools are not succeeding in accomplishing this task.  The country of Finland has repeatedly shown extraordinarily outstanding results in quality education.  It consistently ranks among the best educational systems in the world. This project will compare the United States school system with that of Finland, with the topic of school reform in mind.  The research for this project led to sources from five topic areas: School Reform, Differences between the American and Finnish school systems, Finnish teacher training, and Finnish curriculum.

There is a huge amount of material on the subject of school reform.  Some focus on the financial aspect of school reform.  Richard Rothstein and Adam Schaeffer each wrote articles entitled “Has Spending on Public Schools Risen Too High?” Rothstein’s article was a ‘no’ answer to the question, while Schaeffer said ‘yes’.  Scott Ellison takes a different view on school reform.  His article, “Hard-Wired For Innovation? Comparing Two Policy Paths toward Innovative Schooling”, talks of the market-driven approach to school reform, and then compares it to a results-driven approach.  Ellison points out that schools do not have a monetary ‘return on investment’, and should not be analyzed in such a manner.  David Granger, in “No Child Left Behind and the Spectacle of Failing Schools: The Mythology of Contemporary School”, is very harsh in his criticism of ‘No Child Left Behind’ and the forced spectacle of fighting a war against poor education.  “School Reform”, by Marcia Clemmitt is another very harsh critic of No Child Left Behind, and has a section on the Finnish school system and some of its methods.

Looking at school reform from a different angle is the documentary “The Lottery”, Directed by Madeleine Sackler in 2010. This film follows four families that have entered into the entrance lottery for a charter school in New York City because their zoned public schools have failed their kids.  Then there is the article “Beating the Odds: How Single Black Mothers Influence the Educational Success of their Sons Enrolled in Failing Schools”, by Quintin Robinson and Jacob Werblow.  The authors of this piece picked the mothers of four black males that were high achievers in school and interviewed their mothers in order to learn how they helped their sons’ successes.  Another documentary looking at the educational system from a different viewpoint is “The First Year”, directed by Davis Guggenheim in 2004.  Guggenheim followed five teachers during their first year of teaching.  Each teacher tried extremely hard in their jobs.  Four met with varying frustrations, difficulties, and failures.  The fifth did achieve a success with her students in lobbying to have their ESL class continued and not shut down.  One teacher-librarian who did have success was Laura Gross-Warren, who wrote “How Does a Failing School Stop Failing?”  Gross-Warren worked in a poor, urban school district with an ethnic minority-majority student body. In order to increase reading skills and levels she created a book list tailored to minorities and had all the books placed in every classroom so that they were readily available to all the students.  The reading levels and skills improved.  The final documentary that I viewed was “Waiting for ‘Superman’”, also directed by Davis Guggenheim, in 2010. This documentary also discusses failing schools, charter schools, and mentions methods of the Finnish school system.  Another work that talks of Finnish schools and emphasizes experiential schooling is “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv.

It seems that some of the methods that the Finnish educators use were picked up from the United States. Valerie Strauss writes of this and lists the changes that were adopted in her article, “Five U.S. Innovations that Helped Finland’s Schools Improve but that American Reformers Now Ignore.”  A piece that contrasts the differences between the American and Finnish national school systems and the aspects of the Finnish system.   One writer, LynNell Hancock, toured some Finnish schools and interviewed the teacher and quotes them in her article, “Educating Americans for the 21^st Century.”  Pasi Stahlberg is a top Finnish education developer.  Anja Franko, in “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?” reviews Stahlberg’s book by the same name.

Turning to focus on teachers in Finland and their practices are David Loertscher and Carol Koechlin in “Finland, Collarboration, and Co-teaching.”  This work discusses the freedom that the instructors had in deciding to partially join their classes for some subjects and work together.  Furthering the research into Finnish teacher training and its success is Marja-Terttu Tryggvason with “Why is Finnish Teacher Education Successful?  Some Goals Finnish Teacher Educators Have for Their Teaching.”  This article discusses mandatory Finnish teacher training and the requirements to be a teacher in a very detailed and useful manner.  Two more excellent articles on Finnish teacher training that will support my argument about school reform in the United States are, “Steady Work: Finland Builds a Strong Teaching and Learning System”, by Linda Darling-Hammond and  “Teacher Education in Finland” by Olli-Pekka Malinen, P. Väsänen, and H. Savolainen.   

The subject of Finnish teacher education led to the topic of the Finnish school curriculum.  The article, “Towards Community Orientated Curriculum in Finnish Literacy Education” by Marita Mäkinen, discusses how the Finnish curriculum developed over time. A final article discusses Finnish literacy: “Finnish Education Reaching High Quality and Promoting Equity” by Pirjo Linnakylä.