> US is captured by the teacher's unions and other special interests. As someone who both taught and studied educational systems abroad, this feels like such a

> US is captured by the teacher's unions and other special interests. As someone who both taught and studied educational systems abroad, this feels like such a weird take. The best schools in the world are found in the Nordic countries, Finland in particular. All have teacher's unions and schools are overwhelmingly public (even most private ones are heavily dependent on the public). The advances they're making in education are not primarily based in technology but rather in teaching methodology and curriculum design. Generally, though, the superior outcomes should be attributed mostly to more structural differences in their approach to education: 1. Valuing teachers monetarily and culturally (probably the most important thing). Teachers are not so overstressed and overworked and are generally a higher caliber person than you'll find in US schools. 2. Taking a "whole child" approach, setting up services throughout the government to help stabilize children's homes. This really eases up teaching because there are fewer problem children. 3. Joining educators and educational researchers at the institutional level. If you've spent a few years teaching it becomes apparent to you that educational PhDs in the US, even from prestigious institutions like Stanford, have not interacted with children enough to have an intuitive understanding of student's emotional capacities or of classroom dynamics, which renders a lot of their work worthless. This stands in stark contrast to senior researchers from Finland who, so far as I can tell, all have that intuitive sense.