Asked by: Anonymous
I agree, to an extent. Of course, conservatives claim that greater educational diversity facilitates competition between the different state models (à la free-market capitalism) and that this competition ensures the adoption of the more successful ones in the long run. The problem is that the most successful school systems — Massachusetts’, for instance — aren’t widely imitated, with local political mindsets and precedents tending to prevail instead. Greater federal oversight could certainly help to create a national educational culture which is globally competitive (if you want to put it in those terms) and intellectually and artistically satisfying to students as well, but the important thing, in my mind, is to accomplish these goals while simultaneously avoiding excessive bureaucratization and standardization.
How?
I won’t pretend that there is a single answer to this question, and I certainly haven’t studied this issue as much as, say, Sahlberg, but I think his fondness for the Finnish model is somewhat warranted. What would it look like in the U.S.? Well, for starters, there would be federal standards for education, presumably determined by experts in each field (“experts” here is broadly defined, but I’m thinking senior professionals, say, in the Ivies or even the international academic community as well), but these standards would be general, to be managed and implemented by individual schools. Of course, I don’t think this level of faith in local schools would be prudent under the current conditions, but a series of reforms could help make it a very wise move indeed.
These reforms could begin modestly (Massachusetts, for instance, began by administering simple literacy tests to its teachers — a fairly basic way to separate the chaff from the hay). Each state could then set up teaching programs in some of its top schools, both public and private. As in Finland, these programs, which would be more intensive than the current ones, would be mandatory to acquire a teaching license (in effect, all prospective teachers would have to enroll in one of these designated schools). Subsidies could be offered to make enrollment possible for qualified applicants.
Public funds could then be invested in the construction of new (architecturally and thematically innovative) schools. For students 16 and up these would include vocational/technical schools, which would focus on job skills and practical training; comprehensives, which would be general ed (similar to liberal-arts schools); and then colleges, which would be more specialized. Standardized testing could be minimized, concentrated mostly in the upper levels, giving teachers and faculty the ability to exert control over the evaluation process (I personally like the refusal of Finnish schools to participate in the pass-fail model), and record keeping would ensure that the schools were producing positive results without imposing the same top-down, managerial “accountability” as the current Race-to-the-Top/No-Child-Left-Behind model.
Of course, strong unionization and greater benefits for teachers would help ensure that the profession was respected, fairly paid, and politically represented. Antipoverty initiatives in the form of universalized social benefits (single-payer health care, food subsidies, investment in jobs that pay a living wage, etc.), progressive taxation, and so on could also help reduce the performance disparities between students of different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. We cannot, after all, separate educational reform from these initiatives, which are closely tied up with it.
Of course, the Finnish model is just one possible alternative. How conclusive is it? Not very, probably, but I think even considering large-scale changes like these is a good way to get the proverbial ball rolling. Starting real conversations about education reform — as opposed to the ones currently being dictated by the far right — is a step in the right direction anyway. Could there be room for some centralization and standardized tests? I’m sure. Larger school systems (as opposed to the “neighborhood schools” advocated by some conservatives) help bridge the achievement gap between students from economically and ethnically segregated neighborhoods by bringing their inhabitants together in a common learning environment, and some kind of evaluations are eventually going to be necessary. There are plenty of possibilities out there, and I think it’s about time we as a nation started looking at them. It may be painful at first, and we should expect a lot of fuss from educators and politicians alike, but something, I think it’s generally agreed, has to be done.
