The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Two must-reads: Finnish Lessons and Fixing the Game

Ever since the Finland–Alberta partnership was launched in Edmonton last March at an international symposium titled Informed Transformation from the Inside Out: International Perspectives on the Fourth Way in Action, the partnership has been guided by the view that school development emanates from the inside out. In short, the partnership is based on the hypothesis that the real work of reform and the locus of influence for positively achieving educational development are the school, not the system.[1]

In this respect, the recent publication of Pasi Sahlberg’s Finnish Lessons—What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? marks an important milestone in the partnership.[2] As Sahlberg notes, Finland has remained relatively immune to the market-based educational reforms imposed by large bureaucracies and by boosters of standardization and technology “solutions” so common across North America. Instead, the Finnish education sector “has been built upon values grounded in equity, equitable distribution of resources rather than competition and choice” focused on building capacity at the school level (Sahlberg 2011, 96).

Readers won’t be surprised to find that it is difficult to separate Finland’s educational successes from the vibrant civil society that supports its schools. For example, Finland has 130,000 registered associations or societies, with a membership of 15 million. On average, each Finn belongs to three associations or societies. This means that young Finns are actively involved in sports and youth associations that complement the broader goals of schooling.

Sahlberg’s central argument is as simple as it is provocative: the Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM), with its pursuit of “increased competition and choice, standardization of teaching and learning, tightening test-based accountability, and merit-based pay for teachers” (Sahlberg 2011, 93) has been successfully resisted by the Finns, although these forces remain more powerful than ever.

At the heart of Finnish Lessons are three paradoxes that could open the door to radical rethinking of Alberta’s K–12 sector if we had courageous leadership.

Paradox 1: Teach Less, Learn More

According to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), Finland consistently outperforms most of the world in literacy, math and science. Yet, in 2001 in lower secondary education, Finland’s teachers taught fewer than 600 hours, while Alberta teachers taught more than 1,000 hours. At the same time, the total number of intended instructional hours in public institutions for children between the ages of 7 and 14 show that Finnish children of this age receive anywhere between 500 to 2,000 fewer hours of instruction compared to children in other countries.

Paradox 2: Test Less, Learn Better

Finland does not have mandatory tests or exams, except for the nationwide National Matriculation Examination at the end of high school. Teachers collaborate to develop their own tests and rely on formative assessment more than on summative grading. As Sahlberg says, the policy question is not to ask what Finland did to achieve this improvement; rather, it may be more important to ask what Finland did not do that lower-achieving countries did. Finland does not subscribe to the test-based accountability policies administered by large central bureaucracies typical in North America. Consider that Alberta Education employs 640 full-time staff, who centralize curriculum and assessment decision making through 100 curriculum and assessment staff in Edmonton (compared to 18 in the Finnish National Board of Education in Helsinki).

Paradox 3: More Equity Through Growing Diversity

The claims of critics that Finland’s success is based on a homogeneous population and little poverty are unfounded. Sahlberg shows how the Finnish education system is a result of “systematic attention to social justice and early intervention to help those with special needs and close interplay between education and other sectors—particularly health and social sectors” (Sahlberg 2011, 58). The Finns adapt to and capitalize on the growing diversity of their urban centres. For example, in schools in Helsinki, the proportion of immigrant children is approaching 10 per cent and the number of languages spoken in these schools is 40.

An opportunity for Fixing the Game?

Just as Finnish Lessons was published, a new publication was creating excitement in the world of economists—Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL, by Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, who was named one of the most influential business professors in the world in 2007.

What does a book about business lessons from the National Football League (NFL) have to do with education reform in Alberta and Finland?

Fixing the Game argues that, increasingly, two parallel markets are operating in the business world: the real market (where goods and services are bought and sold) and the expectation market (the speculative stock market where investors wager on the future values of commodities and companies). In his insightful analysis of the current global economic malaise, Martin notes that as more chief executive officers (CEOs) of corporations focus on the expectation market (focusing on short-term gain for shareholders), the temptation to misrepresent true earnings and profitability grows, and these same CEOs become distracted from the day-to-day running of their companies.

Martin describes many examples of corporate leadership bungling and outright malfeasance, such as the initial efforts by BP executives to dismiss the effect of the blown oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in order to protect share price. In contrast, the NFL represents an organization that has kept a distinct boundary between the real and expectation markets. The NFL has considered the relationship between the real game and the expectation game and avoided serious dangers. For example, early in the 1960s, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle clamped down on players who had bet on the outcomes of games. The league created NFL Security (what is called the NFL’s FBI) to detect and stamp out player betting.

“Our single-minded focus on the expectations market will continue driving us from crisis to crisis to ruin—unless we act now,” warns Martin. His solutions to the structural problems facing capitalism resonate with Sahlberg and the Finland–Alberta partnership. Martin’s recommendations include shifting the focus of company performance away from seeking quick but unsustainable profits, restoring the longer-term corporate vision of companies to include their contribution to the social good (rather than just their shareholders) and transforming boards of governors to become accountable for more than just the bottom line.

The principles of sound business processes are not always transferable to public policy, and public education is not a business, yet there are important lessons to be learned in comparing Sahlberg’s Finnish Lessons and Martin’s Fixing the Game.

For Alberta and Finland, fixing the game in the education sector should not be about a myopic focus on PISA results, test scores or easy short-term gains on externally imposed performance measures. As Finnish Lessons reminds us, our students and their individual gifts and talents deserve better than the distractions associated with school competition, international rankings and school governance models.  

The leadership challenge for educators is to prevent the infiltration of the language of the expectation market into reform efforts. To accomplish this, both books stress the importance of trust and responsibility to something bigger than just us. It is time for Alberta to move from a managerial culture of compliance to one of relational trust. Sahlberg concludes that Finnish reforms worked because “the culture of trust meant that education authorities and political leaders believed that teachers, together with principals, parents and their communities, know how to provide the best possible education for their children and youth. Trust can only flourish in an environment that is built upon honesty, confidence, professionalism and good governance” (Sahlberg 2011, 97).

This is one lesson that we’ll gladly take home with us.

Bibliography

Martin, R. 2011. Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.

Sahlberg, P. 2011. Finnish Lessons—What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press.

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Dr. J-C Couture is the ATA’s associate coordinator of research.

[1] This principle was derived from the work of Pasi Sahlberg and international education reformers Dennis Shirley, Andy Hargreaves and Stephen Murgatroyd, all of whom worked with the Alberta Teachers’ Association to design the partnership. See The Courage to Choose—Emerging Trends and Strategic Possibilities for Informed Transformation in Alberta Schools 2010–2011. Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2010.

[2] The official launch of the book took place in Edmonton, on November 4, 2011, at the invitational symposium Curriculum Design for Informed Transformation: Creating a Great School for Every Student, which was cosponsored by the ATA and Alberta Education. On November 5, all 10,000 copies of the book were sold.