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The article specifically describes a comparison of Finland with Norway, similiar in size and ethnic composition. Apples-to-apples, as you say. Norway's educat

The article specifically describes a comparison of Finland with Norway, similiar in size and ethnic composition. Apples-to-apples, as you say. Norway's education policy is much more similar to the US, and Norway's PISA results are mediocre, also similar to the US.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
Actually, after controlling for ethnic composition, the US and Norway are not similar. In fact the US outperforms Norway by roughly the same margin that Finland outperforms the US. http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
- CPlatypus 15y ago
  Your "authority" is crap. The original article explicitly compared Finland not only with Norway but with individual US states that had similar population and percentage of immigrants. That's about as apples to apples as you can get, considering that US schools are primarily subject to state rather than federal guidelines, and Finland still came out ahead. By way of supposed refutation, you present a source that is full of strong claims substantiated by little more than the most blatant cherry-picking. The author's "correcting for demography" is no more than throwing out the data he doesn't like. Ignoring the fact that the immigrant factor has already been examined, he pulls tricks like comparing second- and third-generation immigrants in Finland to native Swedes. Notice how the obvious comparison between native Finns and native Swedes isn't made, because it wouldn't support his conclusions. Then he goes on to say "In the case of America, 99% of the population originates from other countries" and suggests that we compare such loosely-defined American immigrants to people in their home countries - without regard for such things as economic differences between the countries. After arbitrarily excluding Asians because they pull the results up, Hispanics because they pull the results down, and undeclareds for no methodologically sound (or even fully explained) reason, he comes up with a highly suspect graph purportedly showing how the US "beats" most of Europe. Here's the kicker: even after cooking the data that much, Finland still comes out well ahead of the US. No matter how hard he tries, he still can't manage to reverse the original conclusion. In the end, citing that does more to discredit your position than to support it.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Um, I wasn't disputing the fact that Finland comes out way ahead of everyone else. I would have expected the phrase "...roughly the same margin that Finland outperforms the US..." to be a tipoff. I was disputing the idea that the US and Norway are somehow equivalent. They aren't. The US does far better than Norway. The exclusion of Asians, Hispanics and Blacks is not arbitrary - it is done because Finland, the UK, Sweden and the other nations discussed by Sanandaji have very few of those groups. Since there are strong correlations between ethnicity and school performance, this is necessary - otherwise we might confuse the effect of the school system with effects of the student body. He has another blog post where he compares the US to Asian nations and excludes non-Asian ethnicities for the same reason - Singapore and Japan don't have many Whites/Blacks/Hispanics. The goal of Sanandaji's blog post is to compare educational systems, holding student body constant.
    - CPlatypus 15y ago
      But student body is not held constant, not even ethnically. Even within the "white European" demographic bucket there's huge variation among ethnic groups - most relevantly regarding attitudes toward education itself, teachers, and relative levels of funding or social priority given to either. Treating US whites the same as European whites is wrong on a whole bunch of levels. For one thing, we're not all white. For another, the American population is drawn from specific subsets of the European population, and has experienced different patterns of population change since then (particularly evident wrt Jews with their known unique educational profile). Lastly there's the fact that even if non-whites aren't included in the sample their effects are still felt because many white students still share schools with non-whites, and not a few of those "white" students in fact have mixed heritage. Of course, treating ethnicity - and particularly just white vs. non-white - as the only variable other than the educational system itself is itself offensive. One might also consider the effects that 300+ years of distinctly US culture and history have had on attitudes toward education, teachers, or the relative social/economic priority accorded to either. Or the effects that wealth distribution within the US or wealth differences between the US and other nations might have. The US student body is simply not the same as the Finnish one, so if Sanandaji really wanted to isolate the effect of the educational system then he'd have to adjust for more than one other variable. Alternatively, he or you might take note of the fact that the current Finnish results are the result of change to the system while holding demographics relatively constant. What works in Finland might not work in the US for all sorts of reasons, but claiming that it won't work specifically because of ethnic makeup is both intellectually and morally dubious.
- artsrc 15y ago
  The US and Norway are not similar. Norway and Finland are similar. Finland is similar to many US states, the level of government responsible for education.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

Actually, after controlling for ethnic composition, the US and Norway are not similar. In fact the US outperforms Norway by roughly the same margin that Finland outperforms the US. http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

CPlatypus 15y ago
Your "authority" is crap. The original article explicitly compared Finland not only with Norway but with individual US states that had similar population and percentage of immigrants. That's about as apples to apples as you can get, considering that US schools are primarily subject to state rather than federal guidelines, and Finland still came out ahead. By way of supposed refutation, you present a source that is full of strong claims substantiated by little more than the most blatant cherry-picking. The author's "correcting for demography" is no more than throwing out the data he doesn't like. Ignoring the fact that the immigrant factor has already been examined, he pulls tricks like comparing second- and third-generation immigrants in Finland to native Swedes. Notice how the obvious comparison between native Finns and native Swedes isn't made, because it wouldn't support his conclusions. Then he goes on to say "In the case of America, 99% of the population originates from other countries" and suggests that we compare such loosely-defined American immigrants to people in their home countries - without regard for such things as economic differences between the countries. After arbitrarily excluding Asians because they pull the results up, Hispanics because they pull the results down, and undeclareds for no methodologically sound (or even fully explained) reason, he comes up with a highly suspect graph purportedly showing how the US "beats" most of Europe. Here's the kicker: even after cooking the data that much, Finland still comes out well ahead of the US. No matter how hard he tries, he still can't manage to reverse the original conclusion. In the end, citing that does more to discredit your position than to support it.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Um, I wasn't disputing the fact that Finland comes out way ahead of everyone else. I would have expected the phrase "...roughly the same margin that Finland outperforms the US..." to be a tipoff. I was disputing the idea that the US and Norway are somehow equivalent. They aren't. The US does far better than Norway. The exclusion of Asians, Hispanics and Blacks is not arbitrary - it is done because Finland, the UK, Sweden and the other nations discussed by Sanandaji have very few of those groups. Since there are strong correlations between ethnicity and school performance, this is necessary - otherwise we might confuse the effect of the school system with effects of the student body. He has another blog post where he compares the US to Asian nations and excludes non-Asian ethnicities for the same reason - Singapore and Japan don't have many Whites/Blacks/Hispanics. The goal of Sanandaji's blog post is to compare educational systems, holding student body constant.
  - CPlatypus 15y ago
    But student body is not held constant, not even ethnically. Even within the "white European" demographic bucket there's huge variation among ethnic groups - most relevantly regarding attitudes toward education itself, teachers, and relative levels of funding or social priority given to either. Treating US whites the same as European whites is wrong on a whole bunch of levels. For one thing, we're not all white. For another, the American population is drawn from specific subsets of the European population, and has experienced different patterns of population change since then (particularly evident wrt Jews with their known unique educational profile). Lastly there's the fact that even if non-whites aren't included in the sample their effects are still felt because many white students still share schools with non-whites, and not a few of those "white" students in fact have mixed heritage. Of course, treating ethnicity - and particularly just white vs. non-white - as the only variable other than the educational system itself is itself offensive. One might also consider the effects that 300+ years of distinctly US culture and history have had on attitudes toward education, teachers, or the relative social/economic priority accorded to either. Or the effects that wealth distribution within the US or wealth differences between the US and other nations might have. The US student body is simply not the same as the Finnish one, so if Sanandaji really wanted to isolate the effect of the educational system then he'd have to adjust for more than one other variable. Alternatively, he or you might take note of the fact that the current Finnish results are the result of change to the system while holding demographics relatively constant. What works in Finland might not work in the US for all sorts of reasons, but claiming that it won't work specifically because of ethnic makeup is both intellectually and morally dubious.
artsrc 15y ago
The US and Norway are not similar. Norway and Finland are similar. Finland is similar to many US states, the level of government responsible for education.