If you’ve been following the national or international news about education policy over the past few years, you’ve probably heard that Finland is a big educational success story. What’s amazing about the Finnish story is that the Finnish have basically done everything the opposite of the current education reform agenda in the United States. They’ve focused on equity over excellence, improving the teaching force, limiting student testing, putting responsibility and trust before accountability, and making sure schools and districts are led by education professionals. Pasi Sahlberg and I discussed all this, but also talked about his own experience as a student (he literally grew up in a schoolhouse), and how he came to be an ambassador, of sorts, for Finland’s schools. If you want to hear more of Pasi’s ideas, check out his compelling book, Finnish Lessons, What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland, or this TEDx talk You may also be able to catch him live because he is currently on a leave of absence from his post as Director General of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation (CIMO) in Helsinki and is a Visiting Professor of Practice at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.
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