I was asked to look at why Finland is outperforming the U.S. and other developed countries in education. I believe there are three main reasons that Finland outperforms other countries, especially the U.S. Those reasons are based on their policies regarding equity, holistic teaching, and career readiness guidance. In the United States, our current education system was built to ensure that certain members of the population succeed and keep the majority of the wealth, while other members are kept at a status that will ensure a working minimum wage, blue collar, and military population. The country cannot run without "the little people" is the mentality behind the system.
Using military recruitment as an example, if you look at where military recruiters go to try and recruit high school students, you will find they visit poor areas such as rural schools or schools who serve students predominantly of color. They lure the students in with promises of money. The reason behind this is that these are the least equitable schools, so students are left with fewer possibilities once they are out in the real world. This is by design. These schools are not funded equitably. As more students are afforded other opportunities, fewer choose the military. We can see this as our military struggles to fulfill the necessary recruitment needs as more opportunities are provided to graduating students.
Finland has created a system that encourages equitable support of all schools. They provide qualified staff to ensure that students with disabilities can also learn. The U.S. has normalized the practice of pushing students through, year after year, until they graduate or drop out. In my own family, I was witness to this. I had three younger brothers. My oldest brother struggled with what we now believe was dyslexia. He had issues with behavior because of his disability. He was never tested or placed in a special education program. They pushed him through until he ultimately dropped out his sophomore year. This caused a domino effect of my youngest two brothers dropping out, despite them being able to read and perform on grade level. Why should they have to go to school if their older brother did not? We were a poor family on government assistance with poorly educated parents in a poorly funded school.
Finland's approach to holistic teaching is paramount to their success in my opinion. They have created a system that ensures all students' needs are met. Free meals, psychological and health services ensure that students' basic needs are met, so that they are ready to learn. More importantly, the free meals are healthy. U.S. school lunches are loaded with preservatives, dyes, and sugars. You will never find a grilled chicken breast on a U.S. public school menu. What you will find is processed chicken patties or nuggets. Without proper nutrition, students' brains are unable to perform at their fullest capacity. That's not even to mention the detrimental effects that preservatives have on developing brains.
Finally, we look at Finland's policies concerning secondary education. By the time students enter the last years of their public education, they are given options. Many schools in the U.S. have a push toward offering alternatives to college and universities. In most public schools in Oklahoma, high school students are offered the option of attending a vocational school where they can study trades from nursing to automotive, to business. These schools also offer life skills courses for special education students with the most severe disabilities. The element that is missing from this is career counseling. Finland provides students with counseling services that help provide guidance on choosing a path that is best for them. While U.S. schools have guidance counselors, they are tasked with so many duties that actually meeting with students to help them select a career or higher education path is impossible. The U.S. is also lacking in providing guidance for students who will move straight into the workforce.
The U.S. could improve its education system if it would take on a more equitable stance, ensure students' basic needs are met, and provide career counseling services. The reasons this is unlikely to happen are many. First and foremost, the U.S. has an every man for himself mentality. The mention of social equity brings out the politicians speaking out against what they see as socialism. They refuse to see that providing equity to all will benefit the society as a whole. The people who run our country maintain a substantial amount of wealth that they earned on the backs of the poor. They need to maintain inequity to maintain their wealth.
I once watched a documentary on Finland schools. The one thing that stuck with me was that each school had a wide range of socioeconomic statuses represented. The students from affluent backgrounds worked alongside those who had financial disadvantages. This made the affluent parents invest more into the schools which benefited the less affluent. Districting in the U.S. ensures a socioeconomic segregation. This is further exasperated by the privatization of public education. More and more public funds are moving out of public schools and into private schools, increasing the gap of equitable access to education. If the U.S ever hopes to have a higher performing education system, a complete overhaul of the current system is required.
