3 ms·

Incredibly melodramatic. Comparing yourself to someone denouncing an anti-semitic persecution (and by implication your opponents to anti-semetic persecutors) is

Incredibly melodramatic. Comparing yourself to someone denouncing an anti-semitic persecution (and by implication your opponents to anti-semetic persecutors) is not really a good basis for discussion. I cannot find anything resembling an argument in this entire article. If the swedish education system is so uniquely, shamefully terrible, wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other countries? Is there any evidence for that?

FabHK 6y ago
Agreed, arrogating Émile Zola's battle cry for yourself is in my view overreaching. On the other hand, as Wikipedia notes, "J'accuse! has become a common expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful", so I think it has become more generic, and doesn't contain the implicit accusation of anti-semitism anymore. > wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other countries? It might take many years to manifest itself (at university, PISA study, etc.), though. As such, an early warning by a practitioner that has first hand experience with what's happening in schools right now strikes me as valuable.
- username90 6y ago
  Sweden has had private schools for decades now though, and results are improving since the last reform. Also I don't think private schools is a big deal, good students avoid them since they all have really bad reputation. Nobody will think "Wow, you went to $private_school?" instead it is more like "You went to that school huh, are you an idiot?". There are a few exceptions, but only for the few schools that were private before the reforms this article talks about and they take in so few students that it wouldn't show up in statistics.
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    > "You went to that school huh, are you an idiot?" Which schools have this reputation?
mongol 6y ago
Swedish PISA results have fallen continuously in the past years. Last result showed a break from that but later it turned out that many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question. There is huge concern in Sweden over the state of the schooling system. It is complex because so much have changed over the past 30 years. It is usually not to recommend when trying trying improve something to throw it all up in the air at once, but that is more or less what has been done.
- username90 6y ago
  > Last result showed a break from that Correction: The last two results. > many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question You mean newly arrived immigrants. They would greatly decrease the results depending on how many were excluded, yes, but PISA makes a distinction between immigrants and natives anyway so just look at the natives results and you still see a strong positive trend. Also you could argue that immigrant performance isn't a good indicator of the school system of a country, only an indicator of what kind of immigrants they take in. So the only real number from PISA is actually the performance of students who grew up there and got their entire education in the country.
  - mongol 6y ago
    I don't think that distinction is valuable. Immigrants that come to live here will need to be well equipped for adult life just like native Swedes are. That is why the downward trend has been so worrying. If the young generation in average has faired less well than previous generations, then that is worrying for our society.

FabHK 6y ago

Agreed, arrogating Émile Zola's battle cry for yourself is in my view overreaching. On the other hand, as Wikipedia notes, "J'accuse! has become a common expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful", so I think it has become more generic, and doesn't contain the implicit accusation of anti-semitism anymore. > wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other countries? It might take many years to manifest itself (at university, PISA study, etc.), though. As such, an early warning by a practitioner that has first hand experience with what's happening in schools right now strikes me as valuable.

username90 6y ago
Sweden has had private schools for decades now though, and results are improving since the last reform. Also I don't think private schools is a big deal, good students avoid them since they all have really bad reputation. Nobody will think "Wow, you went to $private_school?" instead it is more like "You went to that school huh, are you an idiot?". There are a few exceptions, but only for the few schools that were private before the reforms this article talks about and they take in so few students that it wouldn't show up in statistics.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  > "You went to that school huh, are you an idiot?" Which schools have this reputation?

mongol 6y ago

Swedish PISA results have fallen continuously in the past years. Last result showed a break from that but later it turned out that many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question. There is huge concern in Sweden over the state of the schooling system. It is complex because so much have changed over the past 30 years. It is usually not to recommend when trying trying improve something to throw it all up in the air at once, but that is more or less what has been done.

username90 6y ago
> Last result showed a break from that Correction: The last two results. > many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question You mean newly arrived immigrants. They would greatly decrease the results depending on how many were excluded, yes, but PISA makes a distinction between immigrants and natives anyway so just look at the natives results and you still see a strong positive trend. Also you could argue that immigrant performance isn't a good indicator of the school system of a country, only an indicator of what kind of immigrants they take in. So the only real number from PISA is actually the performance of students who grew up there and got their entire education in the country.
- mongol 6y ago
  I don't think that distinction is valuable. Immigrants that come to live here will need to be well equipped for adult life just like native Swedes are. That is why the downward trend has been so worrying. If the young generation in average has faired less well than previous generations, then that is worrying for our society.