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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Ravitch: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Ravitch: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

Ravitch: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t)

This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement.

Dear Deborah,

I recently returned from a trip to Europe. In Berlin, I spoke at an international education research conference. Researchers from Europe, Asia, and Latin America were very alarmed by the current “reform” movement in the United States, fearful that the same trends — the same overemphasis of standardized testing, the same push for privatization