5 ms·

In Finland, graduate schools of Education admit students only from the top 10% of college graduates.[1] In the US, nearly half of all new teachers come from th

by cs702 12y ago

In Finland, graduate schools of Education admit students only from the top 10% of college graduates.[1] In the US, nearly half of all new teachers come from the bottom third of college graduates.[2] Evidently, Canada is more like the US than Finland. Depressing. -- [1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands... [2] http://www.mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/Closing_the_talent_gap.pdf http://www.mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education...

aianus 12y ago
How does that work? If you're so educated and skilled, can't you make loads more money in industry than teaching snot-nosed teenagers to solve linear equations? Or does making lots of money not matter as much in Finnish culture?
- growlix 12y ago
  Finland both pays and respects its teachers. This is not so much the case in the US, where teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting. Also, prestige/symbolic capital is a powerful motivator. It seems to me that in the US, wealth is a major contributor to prestige, so they're often not dissociated in professional attainment.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Massachusetts is larger than Finland and has a better educational system. How does Europe fare when compared to the US?
  - djrogers 12y ago
    > teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting I'd vehemently dispute that chartacterization. I've never once in my life run in to anyone who felt that way, with the possible exception of some politicians and union heads.
    - geoffbrown2014 12y ago
      I think you need to expand your horizons. There are large portions of the US population that view our public schools as little more than glorified daycare. While I agree for the most part, I admit that there are exceptions where we do have really solid public schooling. The exceptions are for the rich kids in schools like New Trier, etc.. There is a nearly unlimited number of edu startups trying to address this very problem, they wouldn't exist if we had good schools.
    - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
      Dispute it all you want. It's true. This plagues the lower echelons of society which you may be too distanced from to be aware of. Ask anyone from a school with a large population of students from poor families. When a kid's parents are illiterate and innumerate they tend to not rise above their station.
    - omegaham 12y ago
      While you're correct in that teachers in better districts are respected, teachers in the inner city literally are babysitters (although I would argue that they earn every penny of their paychecks; they aren't overpaid). They spend so much time and effort keeping order that they can barely teach the classes. No parental involvement, kids with mental disorders who cannot be disciplined, insanely high class sizes, and an administration that shrugs and says, "Just keep us from getting closed." Just get 'em to 18 (or earlier - a lot will drop out) and get 'em out the door. Someone else's problem now, probably the state penitentiary.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    >teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting. I think it's also an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which parents think that just because they have kids, it makes them experts at education. This is ultimately harmful because it makes parents feel superior to educators in their respective field.
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      Many people also think they are experts in education, even if they don't have kids, but they've been to school.
  - streptomycin 12y ago
    Teachers in the US are paid more than teachers in Finland: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/09/business/economy/teachersalary.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/09/business/econ...
    - digz 12y ago
      Adjust those for cost of living and the US would be even more competitive.
      - streptomycin 12y ago
        It's already adjusted for cost of living, the y axis is PPP.
- akgerber 12y ago
  A Finnish teacher at midcareer appears to make pretty much the average wage in Finland: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/teachers-salaries_teachsal-table-en http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/teachers-salaries_tea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_a... That said, 'Finland's teachers have high status, professional support, and good pay'[0], teaching 4 hours a day for 190 days a year. One can also presumably make that wage pretty much anywhere in the country, where the wage will go further than private wages that are likely mostly available in higher-cost areas. So basically, it's a job with an average wage, but high respect and good working conditions. [0] http://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8063785/finland-schools-education http://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8063785/finland-schools-educati...
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Earnest: how hard are they to fire?
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      Quite difficult. Generally, in Finland, firing a teacher requires an incidence of gross misconduct, such as violence towards pupils. This is quite rare, though actual statistics are hard to come by. I know of one case in Helsinki area two years ago; this made headlines after a teacher physically removed a disruptive pupil from school cafeteria (generally, touching pupils is a no-no) and someone posted the scuffle in Youtube. The teacher was dismissed by headteacher, but it turned out that at least a partial reason was an earlier schism (perhaps political) between this teacher and the headteacher, and eventually the teacher was reinstated by the local school board. Generally, firing a teacher is not very different compared to individual dismissals in other jobs in Finland; generally, processes for downsizing companies are not that complex while usually an individual dismissal is tricky. Teacher salaries in Finland are not particularly good, but the profession is popular because pay in other university-trained professions is low (compared to US, or Germany, for instance) and therefore there are lots of applicants to teacher training. And the students can be assured that there are jobs, which is not the case for many other professions.
    - 12y ago
- ptaipale 12y ago
  Well, if you make loads of money in Finland, the taxman will take a significant part of it. That decreases the incentives to work in industry. And yes, making lots of money indeed matters less in this culture than (it seems, I don't know for sure) in America. But I wouldn't say that teachers are paid that well in Finland. It's just that the expresssion (Finland.compare_compensation(teacher, engineer) > US.compare_compensation(teacher, engineer)) evals to 1. Overall, the current Finnish political climate seems to be hostile to industry, and I see no signs of improvement. Elections in a few months, and everyone is a friend of the public sector employees, because they are such a significant part of the workforce and voting base.
strictnein 12y ago
For [1]: [2] disputes [1]. It states in [2] that it's the top 20% of _high school_ students on page 17. A very different stat. And [1] doesn't say college graduates, it just says graduates. For [2] It's strange when I see these stats. Where I live in the US, 60-80% of high school teachers (depending on school) have advanced degrees (masters or higher). And that's also a weird stat to cite. What percentage of teachers with 5 years experience graduated in the bottom third? That would be a more important stat.
- thuuuomas 12y ago
  Their possession of advanced degrees says, sadly, little of their overall educational achievement.
- ashark 12y ago
  > For [2] It's strange when I see these stats. Where I live in the US, 60-80% of high school teachers (depending on school) have advanced degrees (masters or higher). And that's also a weird stat to cite. What percentage of teachers with 5 years experience graduated in the bottom third? That would be a more important stat. It's worth noting that the market for higher degrees for teachers is maybe not what people unfamiliar with it would expect. Plenty do get "real" higher degrees because they actually want to learn something, but there are strong incentives ($$$) for universities to offer fairly worthless higher degrees marketed toward working teachers, and many of them do. Around here, at least, it's expected that a teacher will eventually get at least a master's. It's not expected that they'll choose a challenging program, or that they'll come out the other side substantially more knowledgable or capable at their job than they would have been without the course work. A master's from a top university puts you on the same pay scale as the guy or gal who went with State-U's-Cash-Cow-Teacher-Degree-Mill-Correspondence-Program—except that the school probably paid a much higher percentage of their costs than yours.
- Jtsummers 12y ago
  IME most school teachers with advanced degrees obtain them from pay-for-grade schools. Those degrees are essential for them to either move up the ranks in their programs or bump up their salary (here in GA a master's degree can be a $10k or more pay raise). It creates a strong financial motivation to get the degree, but they don't actually have time or desire to earn it. Same thing in military service (officer's in most branches were required to have graduate degrees by a certain rank, though at times this requirement has been dropped). Also federal civil service, many of my colleagues in a federal government job got their degrees from schools with lame graduate programs (observing their course work it was no harder than 3rd or 4th year undergraduate work at a second tier US university). Advanced degrees are like bachelor's degrees used to be. Essential for jobs, so everyone's getting one. In 30 years all our children may be doctors just so they can flip burgers.
ashark 12y ago
(not disagreeing, just documenting) The benefits of being a teacher in the US: - Summers off (mainly a big deal because other professions have very little paid leave, not like the 4-7 weeks + holidays common in Europe) - Very friendly to taking time off to start a family (thanks in large part to unionization. See previous item for why this is a big deal in the US) - Health insurance usually good (Only matters because our healthcare system is so broken, see previous two items) - Decent to good retirement, assuming politicians don't find a way to raid it. - Consistent job market—most cities have about the same teacher/population ratio. i.e. you don't have to move to a certain place to find a job. - You get to help kids learn (sort of, see last item below) A lot of the appeal comes down to gaining European-like worker protections and services (effectively, though from the employer in this case), which is sort of funny. Something rarely considered when promoting mandatory vacation to all workers, universal healthcare, and protections for maternity/paternity leave: these would have a huge (negative) effect on the numbers of people going in to teaching, absent some substantial increases in pay or other perks. Not that that should discourage anyone from promoting those things. The down side: - Little respect/demonized by politicians. Relatedly, many benefits above under constant threat. - Worse pay than a talented person, especially in STEM, could make elsewhere. - Constant stupid pointless methodology churn that approaches the level experienced in programming, but to less purpose and possibly generating even greater stress. - Maybe 75% of your work is basically secretarial, and a fair bit of that isn't directly helpful in the classroom (much of it's not helpful at all, to anyone—yay bureaucracy!) which can be discouraging if you went in to the profession because you wanted to teach. Source: watched my wife go through an elementary ed. major and several years in the classroom, friends with lots of teachers.
- bduerst 12y ago
  Whoa - which U.S. state are you in? Most of those benefits are not really as good as you make them out to be. My dad is a teacher and just announced his plan for early retirement this week. With the stripping of teachers' collective bargaining rights there have been severe drops in take home pay and changes to their benefits. He actually makes a little more money if he retires now than if he waits five years for some of the planned changes.
balls187 12y ago
There are a lot more cultural issues at play that effect the education performance of the US compared to Finland. The US has a far more heterogeneous population than Finland, so directly comparing them doesn't mean a lot. It would be more appropriate to compare Finland to Quebec, given the two have similar racial demographic breakdowns.
- drpgq 12y ago
  There's a lot of immigrants in Quebec.
  - balls187 12y ago
    Racial mixture has Quebec being nearly 90% Caucasian.
    - drpgq 12y ago
      That's definitely not the same thing as being 90% plus ethnic Finnish.
      - balls187 12y ago
        It's not. But I said "racial background" not "ethnic background."
drpgq 12y ago
It is more complex than that. Teaching generally pays way better in Canada compared to the average salary than in the US (especially when pension benefits are included). I have more experience with Ontario rather than Quebec. I would say in Ontario the teacher colleges are rather selective in who get to go, since the pay is so high, there's a lot of applicants. However math ability generally isn't part of the criteria. Ontario right now has a massive glut of unemployed graduates from education faculties. I have always wondered why they didn't use math ability in picking new spots for teachers (right now it seems to be done by the whims of the principals).
- mgbmtl 12y ago
  Here are the stats: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-604-x/2014001/t/tbld.2.1-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-604-x/2014001/t/tbld.2.1-eng... Notice how the lower and maximum salaries are not very different, but how it takes much longer in Québec to get a decent salary. Ex: after 10 years in Québec, you're still at 58,643 $CAD, but in Ontario after 10 years: 75,336 $CAD. My daughter is in primary school. I find it seriously disturbing how underpaid the teachers are.
  - megaman22 12y ago
    With the current exchange rate, that is pretty good pay, compared to U.S. teachers. Anecdotally, my mother has 27 years of experience and a masters, and only makes roughly the Quebec figure.
ptaipale 12y ago
I think that your [1] Smithsonian mag is painting a bit too rosy picture. I live close to the place, Kirkkojärvi, where the interviewed teachers work, and not everyone is quite as happy as that. I know someone who moved away from the area to another school district just because he said he wanted his kids to learn Finnish at school, instead of teaching schoolmates to speak and write. The Smithsonian piece was published after Finland scored high in the 2009 PISA rankings. In 2012 rankings, Finland had dropped quite a lot: 12th place in maths, 5th in science, 6th in reading. That's not very bad either, but it's far from the top, now occupied by Shanghai, China. Did the quality of Finnish teachers drop in three years so much that the academic achievement of pupils fell sharply? Of course not. It's the same teachers, largely similar population, achieving similar results, but the PISA ranking was weighted slightly differently, and the results changed immediately. This shows how things are perhaps more sensitive to how you measure them, not how they actually change.

by cs702 12y ago

aianus 12y ago

How does that work? If you're so educated and skilled, can't you make loads more money in industry than teaching snot-nosed teenagers to solve linear equations? Or does making lots of money not matter as much in Finnish culture?

growlix 12y ago
Finland both pays and respects its teachers. This is not so much the case in the US, where teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting. Also, prestige/symbolic capital is a powerful motivator. It seems to me that in the US, wealth is a major contributor to prestige, so they're often not dissociated in professional attainment.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Massachusetts is larger than Finland and has a better educational system. How does Europe fare when compared to the US?
- djrogers 12y ago
  > teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting I'd vehemently dispute that chartacterization. I've never once in my life run in to anyone who felt that way, with the possible exception of some politicians and union heads.
  - geoffbrown2014 12y ago
    I think you need to expand your horizons. There are large portions of the US population that view our public schools as little more than glorified daycare. While I agree for the most part, I admit that there are exceptions where we do have really solid public schooling. The exceptions are for the rich kids in schools like New Trier, etc.. There is a nearly unlimited number of edu startups trying to address this very problem, they wouldn't exist if we had good schools.
  - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
    Dispute it all you want. It's true. This plagues the lower echelons of society which you may be too distanced from to be aware of. Ask anyone from a school with a large population of students from poor families. When a kid's parents are illiterate and innumerate they tend to not rise above their station.
  - omegaham 12y ago
    While you're correct in that teachers in better districts are respected, teachers in the inner city literally are babysitters (although I would argue that they earn every penny of their paychecks; they aren't overpaid). They spend so much time and effort keeping order that they can barely teach the classes. No parental involvement, kids with mental disorders who cannot be disciplined, insanely high class sizes, and an administration that shrugs and says, "Just keep us from getting closed." Just get 'em to 18 (or earlier - a lot will drop out) and get 'em out the door. Someone else's problem now, probably the state penitentiary.
- bduerst 12y ago
  >teaching is viewed as overpaid babysitting. I think it's also an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which parents think that just because they have kids, it makes them experts at education. This is ultimately harmful because it makes parents feel superior to educators in their respective field.
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    Many people also think they are experts in education, even if they don't have kids, but they've been to school.
- streptomycin 12y ago
  Teachers in the US are paid more than teachers in Finland: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/09/business/economy/teachersalary.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/09/business/econ...
  - digz 12y ago
    Adjust those for cost of living and the US would be even more competitive.
    - streptomycin 12y ago
      It's already adjusted for cost of living, the y axis is PPP.
akgerber 12y ago
A Finnish teacher at midcareer appears to make pretty much the average wage in Finland: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/teachers-salaries_teachsal-table-en http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/teachers-salaries_tea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_a... That said, 'Finland's teachers have high status, professional support, and good pay'[0], teaching 4 hours a day for 190 days a year. One can also presumably make that wage pretty much anywhere in the country, where the wage will go further than private wages that are likely mostly available in higher-cost areas. So basically, it's a job with an average wage, but high respect and good working conditions. [0] http://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8063785/finland-schools-education http://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8063785/finland-schools-educati...
- danielweber 12y ago
  Earnest: how hard are they to fire?
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    Quite difficult. Generally, in Finland, firing a teacher requires an incidence of gross misconduct, such as violence towards pupils. This is quite rare, though actual statistics are hard to come by. I know of one case in Helsinki area two years ago; this made headlines after a teacher physically removed a disruptive pupil from school cafeteria (generally, touching pupils is a no-no) and someone posted the scuffle in Youtube. The teacher was dismissed by headteacher, but it turned out that at least a partial reason was an earlier schism (perhaps political) between this teacher and the headteacher, and eventually the teacher was reinstated by the local school board. Generally, firing a teacher is not very different compared to individual dismissals in other jobs in Finland; generally, processes for downsizing companies are not that complex while usually an individual dismissal is tricky. Teacher salaries in Finland are not particularly good, but the profession is popular because pay in other university-trained professions is low (compared to US, or Germany, for instance) and therefore there are lots of applicants to teacher training. And the students can be assured that there are jobs, which is not the case for many other professions.
  - 12y ago
ptaipale 12y ago
Well, if you make loads of money in Finland, the taxman will take a significant part of it. That decreases the incentives to work in industry. And yes, making lots of money indeed matters less in this culture than (it seems, I don't know for sure) in America. But I wouldn't say that teachers are paid that well in Finland. It's just that the expresssion (Finland.compare_compensation(teacher, engineer) > US.compare_compensation(teacher, engineer)) evals to 1. Overall, the current Finnish political climate seems to be hostile to industry, and I see no signs of improvement. Elections in a few months, and everyone is a friend of the public sector employees, because they are such a significant part of the workforce and voting base.

strictnein 12y ago

For [1]: [2] disputes [1]. It states in [2] that it's the top 20% of _high school_ students on page 17. A very different stat. And [1] doesn't say college graduates, it just says graduates. For [2] It's strange when I see these stats. Where I live in the US, 60-80% of high school teachers (depending on school) have advanced degrees (masters or higher). And that's also a weird stat to cite. What percentage of teachers with 5 years experience graduated in the bottom third? That would be a more important stat.

thuuuomas 12y ago
Their possession of advanced degrees says, sadly, little of their overall educational achievement.
ashark 12y ago
> For [2] It's strange when I see these stats. Where I live in the US, 60-80% of high school teachers (depending on school) have advanced degrees (masters or higher). And that's also a weird stat to cite. What percentage of teachers with 5 years experience graduated in the bottom third? That would be a more important stat. It's worth noting that the market for higher degrees for teachers is maybe not what people unfamiliar with it would expect. Plenty do get "real" higher degrees because they actually want to learn something, but there are strong incentives ($$$) for universities to offer fairly worthless higher degrees marketed toward working teachers, and many of them do. Around here, at least, it's expected that a teacher will eventually get at least a master's. It's not expected that they'll choose a challenging program, or that they'll come out the other side substantially more knowledgable or capable at their job than they would have been without the course work. A master's from a top university puts you on the same pay scale as the guy or gal who went with State-U's-Cash-Cow-Teacher-Degree-Mill-Correspondence-Program—except that the school probably paid a much higher percentage of their costs than yours.
Jtsummers 12y ago
IME most school teachers with advanced degrees obtain them from pay-for-grade schools. Those degrees are essential for them to either move up the ranks in their programs or bump up their salary (here in GA a master's degree can be a $10k or more pay raise). It creates a strong financial motivation to get the degree, but they don't actually have time or desire to earn it. Same thing in military service (officer's in most branches were required to have graduate degrees by a certain rank, though at times this requirement has been dropped). Also federal civil service, many of my colleagues in a federal government job got their degrees from schools with lame graduate programs (observing their course work it was no harder than 3rd or 4th year undergraduate work at a second tier US university). Advanced degrees are like bachelor's degrees used to be. Essential for jobs, so everyone's getting one. In 30 years all our children may be doctors just so they can flip burgers.

ashark 12y ago

(not disagreeing, just documenting) The benefits of being a teacher in the US: - Summers off (mainly a big deal because other professions have very little paid leave, not like the 4-7 weeks + holidays common in Europe) - Very friendly to taking time off to start a family (thanks in large part to unionization. See previous item for why this is a big deal in the US) - Health insurance usually good (Only matters because our healthcare system is so broken, see previous two items) - Decent to good retirement, assuming politicians don't find a way to raid it. - Consistent job market—most cities have about the same teacher/population ratio. i.e. you don't have to move to a certain place to find a job. - You get to help kids learn (sort of, see last item below) A lot of the appeal comes down to gaining European-like worker protections and services (effectively, though from the employer in this case), which is sort of funny. Something rarely considered when promoting mandatory vacation to all workers, universal healthcare, and protections for maternity/paternity leave: these would have a huge (negative) effect on the numbers of people going in to teaching, absent some substantial increases in pay or other perks. Not that that should discourage anyone from promoting those things. The down side: - Little respect/demonized by politicians. Relatedly, many benefits above under constant threat. - Worse pay than a talented person, especially in STEM, could make elsewhere. - Constant stupid pointless methodology churn that approaches the level experienced in programming, but to less purpose and possibly generating even greater stress. - Maybe 75% of your work is basically secretarial, and a fair bit of that isn't directly helpful in the classroom (much of it's not helpful at all, to anyone—yay bureaucracy!) which can be discouraging if you went in to the profession because you wanted to teach. Source: watched my wife go through an elementary ed. major and several years in the classroom, friends with lots of teachers.

bduerst 12y ago
Whoa - which U.S. state are you in? Most of those benefits are not really as good as you make them out to be. My dad is a teacher and just announced his plan for early retirement this week. With the stripping of teachers' collective bargaining rights there have been severe drops in take home pay and changes to their benefits. He actually makes a little more money if he retires now than if he waits five years for some of the planned changes.

balls187 12y ago

There are a lot more cultural issues at play that effect the education performance of the US compared to Finland. The US has a far more heterogeneous population than Finland, so directly comparing them doesn't mean a lot. It would be more appropriate to compare Finland to Quebec, given the two have similar racial demographic breakdowns.

drpgq 12y ago
There's a lot of immigrants in Quebec.
- balls187 12y ago
  Racial mixture has Quebec being nearly 90% Caucasian.
  - drpgq 12y ago
    That's definitely not the same thing as being 90% plus ethnic Finnish.
    - balls187 12y ago
      It's not. But I said "racial background" not "ethnic background."

drpgq 12y ago

It is more complex than that. Teaching generally pays way better in Canada compared to the average salary than in the US (especially when pension benefits are included). I have more experience with Ontario rather than Quebec. I would say in Ontario the teacher colleges are rather selective in who get to go, since the pay is so high, there's a lot of applicants. However math ability generally isn't part of the criteria. Ontario right now has a massive glut of unemployed graduates from education faculties. I have always wondered why they didn't use math ability in picking new spots for teachers (right now it seems to be done by the whims of the principals).

mgbmtl 12y ago
Here are the stats: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-604-x/2014001/t/tbld.2.1-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-604-x/2014001/t/tbld.2.1-eng... Notice how the lower and maximum salaries are not very different, but how it takes much longer in Québec to get a decent salary. Ex: after 10 years in Québec, you're still at 58,643 $CAD, but in Ontario after 10 years: 75,336 $CAD. My daughter is in primary school. I find it seriously disturbing how underpaid the teachers are.
- megaman22 12y ago
  With the current exchange rate, that is pretty good pay, compared to U.S. teachers. Anecdotally, my mother has 27 years of experience and a masters, and only makes roughly the Quebec figure.

ptaipale 12y ago

I think that your [1] Smithsonian mag is painting a bit too rosy picture. I live close to the place, Kirkkojärvi, where the interviewed teachers work, and not everyone is quite as happy as that. I know someone who moved away from the area to another school district just because he said he wanted his kids to learn Finnish at school, instead of teaching schoolmates to speak and write. The Smithsonian piece was published after Finland scored high in the 2009 PISA rankings. In 2012 rankings, Finland had dropped quite a lot: 12th place in maths, 5th in science, 6th in reading. That's not very bad either, but it's far from the top, now occupied by Shanghai, China. Did the quality of Finnish teachers drop in three years so much that the academic achievement of pupils fell sharply? Of course not. It's the same teachers, largely similar population, achieving similar results, but the PISA ranking was weighted slightly differently, and the results changed immediately. This shows how things are perhaps more sensitive to how you measure them, not how they actually change.