The view from here - Finland

[mrz]

So often Finland is held up as an example of "good" education ...
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6278622

A few years ago I heard on a radio 4 programme that Finland had one of the highest suicide/attempted suicide rates for teenagers. I've never researched or looked into in properly so not really sure whether true or false, but it has always stuck in my mind.

So some elements of Finnish society seem to be afflicted by the same sort of woes that affect some parts of British society...

The big thing that teachers are not supposed to talk about in every society is parents who don't care. One brave teacher there to say what no doubt many all over the world would like to say but don't.

Finnish education is still excellent in general. The PISA tables measure certain skills and Finland's strengths are apparent despite complaints about the brightest not being stretched (where in the world does that actually happen?) and children being neglected and not prepared to behave themselves and contribute to the learning environment (another worldwide complaint).

All tables measure education in general. The nature of the tables is to provide a general picture. The nature of an education 'system' is such that some children will not be stretched, while some will fail to learn much. What the tables are looking at is not the performance of individuals who are exceptions but the performance of the majority, and in the case of Finland, what the tables show is better performance than others.

"The PISA tables measure certain skills and Finland's strengths are apparent"

www.comenius-individual-support.eu/Material-Dateien/Brussels2-20110203/PISA_Presentation_digest%202.pdf

It appears that Finland excludes a higher percentage of students on grounds of "intellectual disability" than the PISA rules allow ... they don't include those with dyslexia for example.

WRT Finnish special ed in general (from your link):
'A well-organized and effective special education system, run by university-trained teachers has shifted towards full inclusion; equality means strong dedication to the idea of "no child left behind‟, found especially in primary and special education (Simola 2005)'.

Special education specifically:
'Only 2% of Finnish pupils are in special teaching institutes; those who are undergoing ordinary education in comprehensive school have carefully-tailored support that corresponds to pupils‟ needs; The relatively small scattering of Finnish PISA results can be understood through the support given to the lower-achieving pupils. The fact that the Finnish average performance in the lowest percentile groups is without any reservations the best in the world is evidence to back this claim. (Hautamäki et al. 2008)

Teacher training -
'Good training for all Finnish teachers in diagnosing students with learning difficulties and in adapting their instruction to the varying learning needs and styles of their students'.

'Teachers in Finland place a premium on two strategies that might seem at odds with each other, but are mutually reinforcing: Students are expected to take responsibility for their own education by giving classes their full attention. Yet, at the same time, a great deal of help is provided to those
who struggle. (Des Moines Register 2010)
? Strong emphasis on early depiction of learning difficulties, with appropriate intervention through remedial help or special education (Kupiainen 2010)'.

Regarding exclusion of student scores from the PISA calculations:
' Rules allowed countries to exclude up to 5% of the target population.
Exclusions for intellectual disability depended on the professional opinion of the school principal or by other qualified staff -

• a completely uncontrollable source of uncertainty. It appears that

some countries defined additional criteria: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Poland, and Spain excluded students with dyslexia; Denmark also students with dyscalculia; Luxembourg recently immigrated students.

• Actual student exclusion rates of OECD countries varied from 0.7% to 7.3%. Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Spain, and the USA exceeded the 5% limit. Nevertheless, data from these countries were fully included in all analyses'

===> I don't think you can confidently conclude that Finland excluded more than 5%. Finland may not have excluded its allowed 5% and then an additional unknown percentage on top of that.
Variance between top and lowest achievers in Finland tends to be much smaller than elsewhere so there may not be any advantage to be gained by Finland excluding its full whack. charts pps. 30, 31, 32 and text p. 33

A strange complaint --
'In PISA 2000, the English and French versions of 60 stimulus texts were compared: the French texts contained on average 12% more words and 19% more letters. Mathematics items of PISA 2003 had 16% more characters in German than in English.'

Maybe it takes more words to express a thought in French? Maybe French words tend to be longer than English words? Again with the German-English 'more characters in German than in English' problem: could it be that German has longer words? Just pondering here -- it seems to me that longer words (for instance German compound nouns) would only be an issue if it can be assumed students can't read them accurately or quickly and I really don't know if this would be the case for native speakers.

Special education specifically:
'Only 2% of Finnish pupils are in special teaching institutes; those who are undergoing ordinary education in comprehensive school have carefully-tailored support that corresponds to pupils; needs;

Significantly higher than in the UK where 2.8% of pupils have statements and just over half attend special schools ...

I gather from general reading that the special teaching institutes are for students with physical, emotional, visual or hearing difficulties at a level that would make it very difficult to accommodate them in the comprehensive schools. The general aim of Finnish education is inclusion however.

It is also my understanding that in the course of their schooldays about one third of Finnish students will receive some sort of educational intervention, and the earlier the better seems to be the motto; as opposed to being put on a special ed track that lasts indefinitely students receive a boost as needed. Intervention is used as a support system for all who need it at one point or another, with language skills/lags the focus of most interventions. 'Statements' don't really enter the picture.

Interesting blog on the subject.

So how would you describe the child in my "mainstream" class who has monocular vision (unable to distinguish obstacles from shadow among other problems) hearing difficulties, no language or utterances, unable to swallow, incontinent, hypermobile in all joints (described as floppy) unable to sit or move unaided and with developmental delay of 3+ years (child is 5) lots of social and emotional issues?

In the UK a statement is usually required to gain a place in a special school and most interventions last for 10 weeks ...

I would describe him or her as a child who ought to have a statement already, mrz.

I would say a statement would be in order too but of course I am not on the spot.

A thorough procedure is necessary in order for a Finnish child to be admitted to one of the 8 schools for children who would be very difficult to mainstream, including lots of input from parents. I gather these schools are residential. Very possibly the child you described would be in one such school in Finland if he/she were Finnish.

Again, there seems to be a difference between the Finnish concept of special education and the British one, with ad hoc 'interventions' the norm in Finland while IEPs, statements, etc., are used in Britain.

He has a statement ... and in the UK he could be in "one such school" but his parents want him in a "mainstream" setting.

Some UK schools use IEPs many do not and interventions are often what you describe as "ad hoc"

It seems that in Finland all students' progress is monitored very closely and intervention is not confined to those with any identified special needs.

'Special needs education within the education system' deals with interventions and special ed and the difference between them. All those in special ed must receive an IEP in Finland.

It seems that in Finland all students' progress is monitored very closely and intervention is not confined to those with any identified special needs.
just like the UK then

It is very clearly not like the UK -- there is a massive difference between the attainment of the lowest and highest performers in the UK', indicating that whatever intervention is done is ineffective. By contrast, Finland has the lowest difference in attainment between lowest and highest achievers, with achievement across the board among the best in the world, indicating that interventions there are highly effective.

or as the PISA clearly states the data for the lowest performers isn't included making a very rosy picture.

Not so fast -- even if they excluded up to the allowed 5% you have to bear in mind that the UK could also do this, and Finland still came out on top in PISA (and other measuring instruments too).

There is no roiling underbelly in Finland that the government there is desperately trying to hide from the rest of the world. The long tail of underachievement in Britain is infamous. Britain would have to exclude 20% of teens to achieve a comparative position.

*comparable

But they are excluding far more than the allowed 5% that is the point the report is making

As every country is using different criteria and reporting different data it makes a complete mockery of the whole table

The report made no such point, Mrz.

You don't know how many children with dyslexia or other learning disabilities were excluded from any countries that excluded on that basis, or what percentage of the entire cohort was excluded. That information was not given in the link you provided.

Here's the quote I am using to base my reasoning on:
'Rules allowed countries to exclude up to 5% of the target population.
Exclusions for intellectual disability depended on the professional opinion of the school principal or by other qualified staff -

• a completely uncontrollable source of uncertainty. It appears that

some countries defined additional criteria: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Poland, and Spain excluded students with dyslexia; Denmark also students with dyscalculia; Luxembourg recently immigrated students.

• Actual student exclusion rates of OECD countries varied from 0.7% to 7.3%. Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Spain, and the USA exceeded the 5% limit. Nevertheless, data from these countries were fully included in all analyses.'

It is quite a leap for you to assume that enough students were excluded to only leave the top performers. Finland does not have a testing culture in its education system its excellent PISA placement when the first PISA results were announced (back in 2000 iirc?) came as a surprise. There is no million Euro prize for coming first. PISA is supposed to be used as a tool as a measure of how well an education system is teaching children whose outcomes can be controlled by the system to a large extent, it is a good tool.

Afaics, all we can say for sure about the percentage excluded is that it fell somewhere between 0.7% and 5% (since only Canada, Denmark, NZ, Spain and USA exceeded the 5% limit we can assume Finland's actual exclusion rate was somewhere between 0.7% and 5%)

They are not reporting different data.

Using different criteria to exclude still doesn't make a mockery of the table unless there are vast numbers of children with dyslexia and other SEN's included in some places and excluded elsewhere.

.Target population too loosely defined: unequal exclusions

.On the fringe of the target population: unequal inclusion of learning-disabled students

.Sampling problems: inconsistent input

.Sampling problems: inconsistent output

.Insufficient response rates

.Gender-dependent response rates

.Elimination of disturbing items

.Unfounded models

.Between-booklet variance

.Timing, tactics, fatigue

Multiple responses to multiple choice items
Conclusions

• The accuracy of country rankings is largely overestimated.
• It is clear from the outset that little can be learned when something as complex as a school system is characterised by something as simple as the average number of solved test items.

When it comes to dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and allowing for exclusion of children diagnosed with these conditions, but only if your country feels like it, are you not bringing in scope for unreliability? And where is it checked what percentage of children in a country actually are included in any survey and which somehow get missed off? I was under the impression that the UK was somewhat surprised by the number of children it turned out were actually living here, according to the last census?????

Surely you are allowing for unpredictable margins of error when it comes to the diagnosing of learning disabilities, cultural differences in their reporting and diagnosing in the first place, and the official recording of such conditions, etc, etc? Not to mention the fact that people in different countries speak different languages, and if mashabell is to be believed on anything on which she states an opinion, the English language and its ridiculous spelling system is a cause in and of itself, regardless of the quality of teaching, of so much poor literacy and incorrect diagnosing of dyslexia... And some countries have diagnoses for learning disabilities and developmental disorders which other countries don't recognise or might categorise differently. Seems silly to base statistics on a mess like that, to me. Why can't ALL children be included? Because that would look bad for countries which give up on some children altogether????? Because no data can actually be found on some children, because nobody is interested in measuring them????? Confused....

I'm not really following your last post there Mrz. Pretty much all standardised exams administered to extremely large groups of students suffer from the same or very similar deficiencies. No matter what sort of exam you administer you are not guaranteed a perfect result that will tell you absolutely everything you need to know about students' progress. Even no-standardised tests can have a lot of the shortcomings you listed.

Information on the PISA test, who takes it, what it measures, how it is marked, etc. The average number of solved test items was not the method used to arrive at the scoring of each country's test.

PISA isn't meant as a measure of how well different education systems deliver education to SEN students.

Rabbitstew's comments on various different thresholds for diagnosis of SEN's (with a very disproportionate number of lower SES students getting a statement in the UK for instance) express very well why it makes absolute sense to allow countries to exclude students from the test based on intellectual disability, including dyslexia.