Final Speech - Aislinn Langley

If I were to get up here and say “I hate school,” nobody would really think twice about it. Many of you would undoubtedly share the sentiment. Why is that? We all have our own reasons; some hate school because they don’t like the uniform curriculum, some hate school because they find it too boring or difficult, and some, myself included, hate school because we’ve been told by society to put our grades before our own physical and mental well-being. It’s a broken system. Sure, millions of Americans may graduate high school each year, but twenty percent do not. That’s 1 in 5! There are an estimated 14.7 million American students in high school this year. This means that more than 1.8 million of them won’t graduate! When one fifth of a grade is not graduating every year, I think it’s safe to say that our system is pretty broken. But you don’t need stats to know that the system is messed up. You see it, I see it, parents see it, school personnel see it – anyone who has regular contact with young people can see it. The fact that a problem exists is obvious. But less obvious is how to go about fixing this. We’ve tried many things, but could it be that we’ve been looking in the wrong places?

We’ve tried legislation. In 2002, Congress enacted “An act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind,” more commonly known as NCLB. Met at first with bipartisan support, the act required public schools to administer state-wide standardized tests and show Adequate Yearly Progress. Otherwise they would be dubbed a failing school, for which there were consequences.  It seemed reasonable until put into practice. One of the elementary schools I attended, Southern Elementary, one year reported math and reading proficiency in 15 of 16 subgroups tested. 15 of 16 is a pretty admirable score. Yet it was dubbed a “failing school.”

NCLB also set high standards – the ultimate goal was one hundred percent proficiency in math and reading. This increased teacher accountability tenfold. If a teacher’s students weren’t getting the desired scores on standardized tests, the whole school could be put at risk of being labeled as failing. Regardless of whether or not the standards were unreasonable, the strain fell on the teachers. We saw the rise of “teaching to the test,” and a sudden willingness to conform to set standards as long as it meant students were passing. Standardized tests became the focus of education instead of just a diagnostic tool.

And speaking of teachers, let’s talk about tenure. Many proponents of tenure for grade school teachers view it as encouragement for teachers to be the best they can be in order to create the competition that would hypothetically lead to having only the best teachers in the system. Now, tenure is tricky, because once it’s achieved, it can’t be taken away. I mean, legally it can be, but the process generally entails taking on massive teachers’ unions and is so tedious and complicated that it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. Granted, tenure is great for the job security of awesome teachers, but it’s also allowing sub-par teachers job security too, which obviously hurts us in the long run. And some might argue that if teachers have job security, there’s a decrease in accountability for test scores.

We tried standardizing curriculum and using Common Core and we expanded state-wide tests. Now these test scores have become the be-all-end-all yardstick for measuring education and, quite frankly, everyone involved is pretty stressed about it. So we’ve tried things and they appear to have not worked. We’re back to square one. What else is there to try? As of 2012, the US ranked 17^th in the world for education – it stands to reason that we might have a thing or two to learn from those at the top. Namely, little ol’ Finland.

In the 70s, Finland’s education system was pretty sub-par. Since then, education reforms have abounded and the little Scandinavian country has developed a seemingly unorthodox system compared to ours. And when I say unorthodox, I mean the complete opposite in almost every way.

First off, there are no private schools. All primary and secondary schools are public and completely funded by the federal government. It might interest you that this also applies to universities. There is no tuition. Public, free college education – I can’t even fathom such a wonder.

That’s just the beginning. Another pretty appealing difference is that, except for a single one at age sixteen, there is a complete lack of standardized tests. Can you even imagine a life without standardized tests? I’m quite certain I can’t. Since there are no set standards, individual schools are mostly autonomous. Teachers often create their own curriculum for students and individualize education to fit students’ needs.

Another thing: tenure doesn’t exist. Pasi Sahlberg, Director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility, made a jab at American practices, saying “[t]here’s no word for accountability in Finnish. Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”   There’s no merit system for rewarding teachers because being a teacher is extremely rewarding in and of itself. Finland invests a lot in selecting and training their teachers; only the top 10% of a graduating class can even become teachers. All teachers have masters degrees, extensive training, and the same job prestige of doctors. Could America even consider such a thing? Who would stuffy businessmen condescend to at dinner parties?

In summary, Finland is number one in education because they do pretty much the exact opposite of the United States. I’m not saying that we should drop everything and try to emulate a small Scandinavian country roughly the size of Montana, but we might want to at least consider making similar changes in the future. It would be going against many of the very pillars on which our current system rests, but refusing to make such changes could potentially topple the whole thing. If America wants to be the best, we might want to take some lessons from the best. We could consider stepping out of our comfort zone or we could continue doggedly down our path of standardization in hope that the inherent flaws of the system will one day fix themselves. We need more than changes, we need to change the way we think about making changes.

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