Response 6: There is Nothing Wrong with a Leaning PISA

In "What American's Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success" by Anu Partanen, the author proposes a solution to improve America's educational system by comparing it to Finland's Ministry of Education who have seen their students achieve spectacular results in the internationally taken and triennial PISA survey. Partanen demonstrates the Finnish Educational System's superiority through their consistency to rank as one of the top three nations with their PISA scores, the lack of capitalism in the educational system (creating an atmosphere focused solely on education), and the use of student equity over the intellectual individual. Personally, I don't think any aspect of the Finnish system would work well in America because everybody is different, and that difference cannot be measured through where one is born; America is a nation where its minority hold on to their culture and beliefs, where government is built on checks, balances and compromise. The nationalization of private schools would infuriate those who can afford. The lack of statistics would leave the Department of Education perplexed as to how to increase efficiency, and to apply checks and balances, with a teacher who has been given complete totalitarian control over one's grade, as there are no results to prove one deserves otherwise. Also, the PISA only measures the academic capabilities of 15 year olds, and could produce different results when comparing to adolescents of a different age group. Overall, the author failed to persuade me as a reader as I believe that her facts used were weak or irrelevant. Albeit, America's educational goals are somewhat akin to the Finnish system, one cannot forget the great disparity in the nations and that a change as such with an international paradigm like the USA could cause academic entropy both nationally and internationally (to those nations who follow the American educational system).