“Sahlberg and Walker explain that Finland wasn’t trying to create a world-class education system when it reformed its schools 25 years ago. It was just trying to save money in the recession of the early 1990s. Instead of axing programs and increasing class sizes, the Finns looked at the well-paid bureaucrats who’d been running their mediocre system. Why not ditch them and let local teachers decide how to meet national curricular goals?
That was a question few education systems would dare to ask, because in most countries, including Canada, there always seems to be a ready platform for critics portraying teachers as feckless layabouts who must be bullied into “accountability” by education ministries relying on standardized exams to judge student progress.
But the Finns already respected their teachers. So school reform made them as professional as doctors, lawyers or architects: highly trained, taking guidance from one another instead of from government bureaucrats, and trusted to teach and assess their students with little reliance on standardized exams.
Sahlberg and Walker have classroom experience both in Finland and overseas, so they’re aware of sharp differences between the Finnish and other systems — many the result of trust. They describe how teachers work with principals in small management groups to discuss issues before bringing them up at the next faculty meeting, where the feedback will determine the next management group meeting. The result is “distributed leadership,” with teachers understanding administrators’ needs and vice versa.”