What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

[MannyGoldstein]

16. I don't know for sure, but here are some thoughts

First off, to elaborate on my post from yesterday (I was on a smart phone and I hate typing on it...): on the NAEP "nation's report card" math and english tests, given nationwide to random groups of 4th and 8th graders every two years, Massachusetts has scored #1 in the US on all four nationwide tests, every year the tests were given except for once when we were number 2 in one test.

In the 2007 TIMSS test, given internationally to compare student knowledge across countries, Massachusetts and Minnesota chose to be broken out as separate countries to see how they compared to the rest of the world. the result:

TIMSS Results Place Massachusetts Among World Leaders in Math and Science

"TIMSS is an international math and science assessment administered every four years to a sampling of 4th and 8th grade students in participating nations around the world. The test was administered in April and May 2007 to 3,600 students attending 95 randomly selected schools in Massachusetts.

In science, Massachusetts 4th graders received a scaled score of 571, surpassed only by Singapore, which scored 587; in math the state's fourth graders averaged 572, behind Hong Kong SAR (607) and Singapore (599) and tying for third with Chinese Taipei (576) and Japan (568).

Eighth graders scored 556 in science, tying with Singapore (567), Chinese Taipei (561), Japan (554) and the Republic of Korea (553); in math, the state's eighth graders scored 547, ranking sixth behind Chinese Taipei (598), Republic of Korea (597), Singapore (593), Hong Kong SAR (572), and Japan (570)."

And, by the way - Massachusetts state tax rates are actually in the bottom half of the US! We get great results and we don't pay a lot for it.

As to why: I don't think it's been studied, but I have a couple of guesses. The obvious is that Mass was (I think) the first state to set up standards for what topics should be taught to children and when it should be taught (the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks), along with associated testing to demonstrate that it's been taught (the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System or MCAS).

Second, people in Massachusetts are, by-and-large, pretty nice to each other and common sense seems to rule the day as compared to other states. For example, it was the first state to establish public education, to end slavery and recognize equal rights for black folks, to legalize trade unions, to permit gay marriage, and so fort. That's not a specific reason for our students doing so well, but I believe that the general pervasiveness of good will leads to generally good decision making.

What blows my mind is that nobody seems to think to study Massachusetts' success and export it to other states. We implement untested, unproven programs like the Obama-Duncan ones, and look to other countries - but we have a raging success story right here in the US, why on Earth do we not leverage it?