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"This month's Smithsonian magazine includes an interesting article exploring the (relatively recent) success of Finland's school system. The author highlights a certain Zen-like quality in the way Finnish schools operate:
Among the other points of emphasis:
• There is very little emphasis in Finland on standardized tests or data-based comparisons of any sort. ("Americans like all these bars and colored graphs," one Finnish educator says bemusedly.)
• Finnish teachers, who are selected from the top 10 percent of the nation's college graduates, command a level of professional respect comparable to that of doctors and lawyers. (And the required master's degree in theory and practice is fully subsidized by the government.)
• All public schools in Finland follow a national curriculum that has been boiled down to "broad guidelines." ("The national math goals for grades one through nine," the author notes, have been "reduced to a neat ten pages.")
• Mixed-ability student groupings are the norm (indeed, apparently required), with special educators playing a large and valued role in helping struggling students stay on pace.
• There is a major emphasis, including among differing political parties, on equality of resources and access across schools."