So what does this mean? Clearly there's more to it than just "more testing is necessary!" or the reverse. Is the Anglosphere in some "unhappy middle", where moving towards either more OR less testing would help? Is the amount of testing in fact orthogonal to school performance? I know both Finland and China are said to have high levels of societal respect for education, perhaps that's the crucial factor—but I'm not aware of any good measurements of this, maybe it's anecdotal.
Another hypothesis is that there's a fairly hard limit to how well children can be educated at this point in time, and that the best schools in Finland, China and the U.S. all near this limit. In China we only look at the best schools and students, and with so many people in China the best will look pretty good. Finland has very high equality and homogeneity, so the worst schools aren't so far off from the best, and the whole country comes out looking good. The U.S., however, has many badly funded schools and marginalized populations, so that could make the difference. Then the question becomes whether we can approach Finland's success, or if the Anglo countries are too inherently different. Again, this entire paragraph is truly rampant speculation, and my mind and gut are both skeptical.
I like your comment. You probably are not German, but if, you would like the texts of Reinhard Kahl (http://reinhardkahl.de/). His texts are basically about the question 'What kind of school works', and actually 'What do we mean by "school works"'. Among others he tried hard to demystifiying the success of the finnish school system in the first PISA test, argueing against just copying blindly some aspects that _seemed_ important (e.g. like you, he pointed out that 'education' was socially highly respected in Finnland, unlike in most other european countries). He constantly writes about (german) schools that achieve very good results in tests like PISA, highlighting what they do differently. It is quite interesting that he often finds methods or techniques in these schools that fit really well a lot of findings in neuroscience and psychology (without the teachers at these school knowing anything about these findings!). So what are some things he advocates: (i) no longer teach in a fixed classroom setting, instead, every student should learn by himself, according to weekly/monthly/yearly plans that are setup together with his teacher(s) [main reason for this: every human is special, our brains do not develop at the same speed at the same time] (ii) do not kill the researcher in the children, instead foster playfulness in live and study and show that effort is something deeply satisfying (iii) Authentic teachers, authentic parents, authentic grown-ups (iv) Bring the 'real' live/world into the school (vi) open the school up to the 'real' live, schools should be centers in our society, (vii) at school you don't teach subjects, you teach human beings (viii) there is no school to rule them all and many more aspects. I like his stuff so much because he shows and describes places that really work, and also manages to write about philosophical aspects of these questions (he often connects to writings from Hannah Arendt about eduction).
PS: I'm aware that I can't give justice to the stuff Kahl writes, what I have written is quite incomplete. But one has to read it on its own. I'm also aware that some of this stuff is only relevant for german schools, yet I think the broader questions is relevant for all countries.
PPS: Refrain from calling me a hippy, a dreamer, a communist or any other stereotype _you_ think is negative. I went through the normal (german) school and university system and it gradually became clear to me, that things as they were and are working are not as good as we want to think, actually, things are rather bad. I'm looking for new ways and possible solutions, trying to find the right questions.
Sounds interesting, do you happen to know if any Kahl is in translation? A quick google picks up nothing.
I'm curious how he would explain the success of schools in places such as Eastern Europe and China. More testing, regimented learning, little focus on individual needs...these seems like the opposite of what he's recommending, but it still works somehow.
PS: I think everyone on HN is a bit of a dreamer, no? :)
So what does this mean? Clearly there's more to it than just "more testing is necessary!" or the reverse. Is the Anglosphere in some "unhappy middle", where moving towards either more OR less testing would help? Is the amount of testing in fact orthogonal to school performance? I know both Finland and China are said to have high levels of societal respect for education, perhaps that's the crucial factor—but I'm not aware of any good measurements of this, maybe it's anecdotal.
Another hypothesis is that there's a fairly hard limit to how well children can be educated at this point in time, and that the best schools in Finland, China and the U.S. all near this limit. In China we only look at the best schools and students, and with so many people in China the best will look pretty good. Finland has very high equality and homogeneity, so the worst schools aren't so far off from the best, and the whole country comes out looking good. The U.S., however, has many badly funded schools and marginalized populations, so that could make the difference. Then the question becomes whether we can approach Finland's success, or if the Anglo countries are too inherently different. Again, this entire paragraph is truly rampant speculation, and my mind and gut are both skeptical.
Thoughts, anyone?