In Salon.com yesterday, contributor David Sirota interviews Tony Wagner, Harvard professor and filmmaker of a new documentary on the astounding success of Finland's education system, "The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World's Most Surprising School System." Wagner's documentary shows an educational system the de-emphasizes standardized accountability testing, and heavily criticizes the current political debates about educational reform in the U.S. The audio excerpt of Sirota's entire interview is available here from his radio show in Denver, CO.

     Wagner describes a school system which, in the 1970's was one of the most under-performing in the world, the product of a poor agricultural economy that was quickly running out of its chief export: trees. The nation implemented a new initiative to improve its schools, thereby become a more knowledge-based and competitive economy. He describes an educational system in which teacher preparation is rigorous, with only about 1 in 10 actually completing and getting their certification. As a result teachers are one of the most highly esteemed professions in the country. They're not paid significantly more than teachers in the U.S., but they benefit from a culture of support and adoration; much the same way athletes and doctors are appreciated here.

     The Finnish education system also doesn't emphasize rigorous, high-stakes testing of kids to prove classroom effectiveness. They have a "quiet auditing system" which goes form school to school to measure performance among minority subgroups only. The results are not for public consumption, are not thrown on the table in support of any political agendas, and do not have penalties attached to them. In fact, Finland has no standardized tests between districts, or even between individual schools. Among international comparison tests, however, they rank #1 in creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, as well as academics. Wagner attributes much of this to the high degree of professionalism among their teachers; with such a rigorous preparation program they have created a trust and a pride in high expectations. "Trust Through professionalism", he calls it.

     Sirota questioned Wagner on several of the prevailing myths regarding education reform in this country as well, and how Finland may be able to educate us on education reform's "best practices". Wagner points to a reform agenda that's been driven by business leaders and by a business model for a quarter of a century; competitive practices, norm-referenced testing, financial incentives, and a culture of productivity rather than progress. This model has also overemphasized 21st century job skills over whole child learning, which has effectively reduced U.S. students to the level of widgets in a multiple-classroom factory. He attributes Finland's success to a bipartisan consensus on the importance of education and high-quality teaching; not as a campaign platform but as a real priority in government investment.

    Sirota also brought up the fact that Finland is smaller, with a more homogenous population, and a most socialist democratic policy bent. Many experts believe that international comparisons tests are often comparing apples to oranges (myself included) because of those very different components. Wagner acknowledges that those variables make a difference, but then does something I haven't thought of before. He takes a single state that is comparable in economics and demography: Minnesota. Finland compared even to Minnesota is an incredibly successful educational system.

     Finally Wagner elaborated on how Finland created such high-quality teachers, comparing them to scientists with classroom laboratories. Teachers in Finland must have a master's degree in their content area to teach in Finnish schools (not some frilly master's on education philosophy or unrelated degree). In addition, Finnish teachers' professionalism is contingent on their collaboration with one another, which schools support during the day and in the course of the week by granting time, extra funding, support.

     On a personal note, I'd like to point out that Scandinavian country's have a much more family-oriented culture, which I believe goes a long way in carrying education from the classroom to the living room. I have many relatives in Sweden and Norway (also extremely high-functioning national school systems) that believe it's the parents' role to educate, both academically and behaviorally. This runs fairly contrary to the U.S. notion that teachers are the educators and parents can just be buddies or disciplinarians. Piers Morgan reiterated this fact in an interview with Billy Ray Cyrus on CNN; when Cyrus admitted he was never very good at supporting learning at home and Morgan supported with, "I've always felt that's the job of the teachers in schools, right?"

     Higher expectations for teachers and a greater degree of professionalism and expertise will go a long way in improving American schools, as will scaling back the political rhetoric around business-model education reform. However, it will also require a culture shift in the way that we view schools and teachers; placing more responsibility on the home and family unit.