In 1992 Sweden introduced school vouchers. As in America,
vouchers gave parents greater choice of schools—something that is anathema to
teachers’ unions. The academic performance of Swedish schoolchildren has been
declining ever since.
The Economist reports:
Swedish
students used to lead international rankings, but the country’s education
standards have been declining for years. Indeed 15-year-olds in Sweden perform
well below average in mathematics, reading and science when compared with
students from other OECD countries, according to the most recent global ranking.
And yet, The Economist asks, does the fault lie with the
voucher system or is there another culprit hiding in the wings?
Apparently there is. It’s called individualized learning--
allowing each child to learn at his own pace on his own terms.
The Economist explains:
But
there are good reasons to believe the problem is not school choice. This is
because Sweden's voucher scheme coincided with a host of other reforms, most
significantly a change in the national curriculum in 1994, which emphasised
individualised learning over teacher instruction. A comprehensive study (in Swedish) published in 2010 found that this
was among the most plausible explanations for the drop in student performance.
(Sweden duly changed its national curriculum again in 2011.) Norwegian schools
implemented similar curriculum changes in the 1990s and saw similar unfortunate
results, whereas Finland concentrated on teacher-led pedagogy and saw
improvements in student performance.
And that’s not all:
First,
the “disciplinary climate” in classrooms is poor; teachers seem to have little
control over unruly students. Second, Sweden has the highest proportion of
students who are late for school among all OECD member states. Third, students
study less and report lower levels of perseverance than peers from other
countries. Fourth, a typical 15-year-old in Sweden receives 741 hours of
instruction time in school per year whereas the average OECD student receives
942 hours.
Apparently, much of this derives from individualized
learning:
… it
should not come as a surprise that relieving teachers of some of their
responsibilities and authority took a toll on discipline in classrooms and
vastly reduced the instruction time that students receive.
Allowing each child to follow his bliss produces
near-anarchy in the classroom. The result is that no one can learn.
As for vouchers, they were most beneficial to students from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
One study found:
This
study does not explain why disadvantaged students appear to benefit more from
school choice than their peers. But a plausible reason is that many poor
Swedish neighbourhoods have been plagued with bad schools, and vouchers meant
students were no longer forced to attend them. Indeed, the authors find that
after school choice was introduced, disadvantaged students were more likely
than other students to attend schools that were private and far from home.
What is surprising is that this IS surprising to them.
ReplyDeleteCould it also possibly be attributed to the fact that little"Swedes" are increasingly named Mohammed and Fatima, with all attendant problems and challenges?
ReplyDeletewent to give a lecture on medical professions in a local high school. I am a radiologist. After the bell=chaos. teacher said "I am going to the break room". I said loudly "be quiet sit down!" could have heard a pin drop. "those who do not want to learn or participate go to the principals office and tell them that". No one left. "you will stand look at the X-rays and answer my questions starting on the right" I put up a chest x-ray and lobbed the student a soft ball question. We went around for an hour. Not one student left. Not one student talked out of turn. 10 students kept me after for 15 minutes asking questions. One said, "no one has ever treated us like this"
ReplyDeleteGreat... thanks for reporting this.
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