Educational Reform in America: The Trouble With Numbers

A recent post at The 21st Century Principal blog, "Can US Learn Ed Reform from Finland?", by J. Robinson*, posits that, "[American] education reformers dismiss all of what Finland does because 'that country lacks diversity...'" While I agree with many of Robinson's subsequent points, this particular assertion requires clarification.

Diversity is a valid and relevant discrepancy in any comparison of the U.S. teaching system to the Finnish education system. Having a national population of approximately 5.3 million (http://bit.ly/ggWbZw,) there are only as many Finns in all of Finland as there are citizens in the state of Missouri (http://bit.ly/hO9DUZ,) and Helsinki, the largest of Finland's cities, has a mere 588,000 residents (http://bit.ly/dEQ9WN.)

Even if it were equivalent to the United States in ethnic or class diversity (and it isn't,) the urban population of Helsinki alone contains a staggering 11 percent of the entire country's inhabitants; whereas the largest American urban center, New York City, contains only two percent of all Americans (http://bit.ly/gKbmvx.) When this number is combined with the 8 other U.S. cities of one million or more inhabitants, the sum total still amounts to only 7 percent of the American population (http://bit.ly/gn2T6X.) On this basis alone, it should be clear that the Finnish system has had a distinct advantage towards the facilitation of a streamlined methodology that the U.S. would never be able to match.

This is not to say that every idea or model for systemic change should be dismissed as futile, only that its implementation will always pose a significant challenge to any established institution: the more an infrastructure expands, the less effective it is likely to be.

(Maria H. Andersen's article, "The World Is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning," at the World Future Society's website, addresses this paradox from a different perspective, outside the box, as it were. Worthwhile reading.)


*Robinson's post, in turn, relates an argument by Pasi Sahlberg from an Op-Ed in the Boston Globe.

Carpe noctem?

I suppose I'm overdue for an update; I will be doing that soon, however, now is not the time. Too tired, must sleep!

formspring.me

Go on, ask another - I dare you. http://formspring.me/b00jUm

What music are you listening to today?

L.A. Vampires Meets Zola Jesus; an hour ago it was Simone Dinnerstein's recording of the Bach Goldberg variations.

Go on, ask another - I dare you.

What was the best concert you went to?

Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood tour, at the Opera House in Toronto...er...I think that was in '94...?

Go on, ask another - I dare you.

Jeepers!

This is just a quick post to say, "hurray!" I'd like to blog more on the subject of Hal Niedzviecki's Peep Diaries coming to town next week but I'm in a hurry just now. Watch for updates and click the link in the meantime!

If you were to roll back time, to which era would you roll it back to?

Good question. The short answer is that I wouldn't - I'm reasonably satisfied that one era is as good as another, thus a rollback would only deprive me of my own chronological authenticity.

If, for whatever reason, I did backtrack, then assuming it were possible to do so safely AND return to the present intact, I would love to see the birth of the universe - if such a singular, defining moment ever occurred.

If not, then I'd want to do one of the following: a) pan forward to the moment at which a quantifiable explanation for material existence is discovered*; or, b) fast-forward to the end of time*; or, c) rewind as far as possible.

* That is, if forward time-travel were possible, and/or that time is finite.

Go on, ask another - I dare you.