Anu Partanen Finlands School Success

In “Finland’s School Success,” author Anu Partanen writes about the success of Finland’s education system, and the equity provided to each student, throughout the state. In her essay, Partanen compares the inequality of competition, school choice, private schools, and diversity in the ethnic identity of students, between the United States and Finland schools. She starts by describing Finland’s education system as the “West’s reigning education superpower…” (976). Partanen explains the Pisa survey, which is, “conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)” stating that it, “...compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science,” and that, “Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies… neck and neck with

Partanen also used Sahlberg, an individual who completely understands the Finnish education system, to help her prove her point. Partanen was able to transition from topic to topic with ease, but started and ended her essay roughly. The beginning of the essay starts out harsh, diving deep into the subject without buffer room. Partanen starts her essay out with, “Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how?” (976), but personally I don’t think this question is the right question to ask her audience. Partanen instead could have said something like, “Although most of the leading educational superpowers are in the eastern asian nations, Finland, a leading educational superpower, is a western state, compelling nations such as the United States to compare educational systems….” The end of the essay also seemed more political than the rest of the essay, encouraging the United States to follow in Finland’s steps, creating equality for each of its 50.4 million students currently in public school, a idea that is