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

superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore” (976).
Partanen uses a man by the name of Pasi Sahlberg, who is the director of Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility, to help explain her questions about the education system. Sahlberg explains that school-choice, or a market for parents to find good or better school in Finland, does not exist because all schools in Finland are equally as good as the next. Sahlberg and Partanen explain that there are very few private schools in Finland, and all of those independent schools are publicly financed by the state. Partanen goes on to point out that there is no competition between schools, and that each student is uniformly equal. In order to make each student equal, students receive, “...free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance” (980). Partanen also argues that the difference in students does not affect educational outcome. Partanen claims that although the United States is an ethnically diverse nation, “...the number of foreign-born residents in Finland doubled during th decade leading up to 2010, and the country didn’t lose its edge in education” (981).
I like this essay, in the sense that the author used information that was relevant to the argument.

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

unpractical.
I did not like the essay because I felt like the author was pushing a political opinion throughout. Partanen’s opinion was more evident at the end of the essay, stating that, “The problem facing education in America isn’t the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society…” (982). It was disheartening to find another misguided individual, who feels that socialism will solve all the problems in the world. The author not realizing that if the government provides everything for everyone, there would be no point for people to work, and those who wish to get ahead, people such as me, would become discouraged.