{"id":5008,"date":"2011-11-26T02:23:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T07:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2011-11-26T02:23:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T07:23:21","slug":"repostravitch-why-finlands-schools-are-great-by-doing-what-we-dont-the-answer-sheet-the-washington-post-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/26\/repostravitch-why-finlands-schools-are-great-by-doing-what-we-dont-the-answer-sheet-the-washington-post-2\/","title":{"rendered":"rePost::Ravitch: Why Finland\u2019s schools are great (by doing what we don\u2019t) &#8211; The Answer Sheet &#8211; The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That\u2019s equality of educational opportunity, a good public school in every neighborhood.<br \/>\nWhat makes the Finnish school system so amazing is that Finnish students never take a standardized test until their last year of high school, when they take a matriculation examination for college admission.<br \/>\nTheir own teachers design their tests, so teachers know how their students are doing and what they need. There is a national curriculum \u2014 broad guidelines to assure that all students have a full education \u2014 but it is not prescriptive. Teachers have extensive responsibility for designing curriculum and pedagogy in their school. They have a large degree of autonomy, because they are professionals.<br \/>\nAdmission to teacher education programs at the end of high school is highly competitive; only one in 10 \u2014 or even fewer \u2014 qualify for teacher preparation programs. All Finnish teachers spend five years in a rigorous program of study, research, and practice, and all of them finish with a masters\u2019 degree. Teachers are prepared for all eventualities, including students with disabilities, students with language difficulties, and students with other kinds of learning issues.<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/answer-sheet\/post\/ravitch-why-finlands-schools-are-great-by-doing-what-we-dont\/2011\/10\/12\/gIQAmTyLgL_blog.html?wprss=answer-sheet\">Ravitch: Why Finland\u2019s schools are great (by doing what we don\u2019t) &#8211; The Answer Sheet &#8211; The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/26\/repostravitch-why-finlands-schools-are-great-by-doing-what-we-dont-the-answer-sheet-the-washington-post-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;rePost::Ravitch: Why Finland\u2019s schools are great (by doing what we don\u2019t) &#8211; The Answer Sheet &#8211; The Washington Post&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}