Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education, a 2010 report from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
What is PISA?
PISA involves extensive and rigorous international surveys to assess the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students. PISA is the result of collaboration of more than 70 countries interested in comparing their own student achievement with the student achievement in other countries. Every three years, PISA compares outcomes for 15-year-old students on measures of reading literacy, mathematics and science (Box 1.2 for a summary of PISA 2009). PISA’s assessments are designed not only to find out whether students have mastered a particular curriculum, but also whether they can apply the knowledge they have gained and the skills they have acquired to the new challenges of an increasingly modern and industrialised world. Thus, the purpose of the assessments is to inform countries on the degree to which their students are prepared for life. Decisions about the scope and nature of the PISA assessments and the background information to be collected are made by leading experts in participating countries. Governments guide mthese decisions based on shared, policy-driven interests. Considerable efforts and resources are devoted to achieving cultural and linguistic breadth and balance in the assessment materials. Stringent quality-assurance mechanisms are applied in designing the test, in translation, sampling and data collection. As a result, PISA findings have a high degree of validity and reliability.
It is not just the volume of resources that matters but also how countries invest these, and how well they succeed in directing the money where it can make the most difference. The United States is one of only three OECD countries in which, for example, socio-economically disadvantaged schools have to cope with less favourable student-teacher ratios than socio-economically advantaged schools, which implies that students from disadvantaged backgrounds may end up with considerably lower spending per student than what the
above figures on average spending would suggest. With respect to spending on instruction, the United States spends a far lower proportion than the average OECD country on the salaries of high-school teachers.
At the same time, high school teachers in the United States teach far more hours, which reduces costs, but smaller class sizes are driving costs upwards (Table B7.3 in the 2010 edition of OECD ’s Education at a Glance). By contrast, Japan or Korea pay their teachers comparatively well and provide them with ample time for other work than teaching, which drives costs upwards, while paying for this with comparatively large class sizes. Finland puts emphasis on non-salary aspects of the working conditions of high-school teachers and also pays for the costs with comparatively large class sizes. Finally, the OECD indicators also show that the United States spends 11.6% of its resources for schools on capital outlays, a figure that is higher only in the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg (OECD average 7.6%)
Teachers’ salaries are related to class size in that if spending levels are similar, school systems often make trade-offs between smaller classes and higher salaries for teachers. The findings from PISA suggest that systems prioritising higher teacher salaries over smaller classes tend to perform better.
Class sizes in mainland China are generally large: the national norm is 50 students. However, in rural areas where good schools are sparse, it is not unusual to see classes of over 80 or in the extreme case, over 100. Parents often indicate their preference for better schools and better teachers over smaller classes. However, in major cities (and Shanghai is typical), recent drastic declines in population have forced local governments to adopt small classes so as to minimise teacher layoffs. This has significantly reduced teachers’ workload and created room for student activities during lessons that would be impossible in large classes.
Here are two final observations, both related to the degree to which the Finnish education system is aligned with and reflects qualities in the larger culture. The first has to do with the very nature of education reform in Finland. Most governments enact education reform through new programmes – e.g. smaller class sizes, more ambitious external assessments, and increased professional development. Reforms like these do not tamper with the basic features of the system. The Finnish reforms, by contrast, especially the creation of the comprehensive school, created a sector that functioned in a radically different way. It is the shape of this new sector, not continued programmatic initiatives from a central government, that accounts for Finland’s success. One critical observer suggested that Finland doesn’t really have a reform strategy, by which he meant that there were no central initiatives that the government was trying to push through the system. From a longer term, more sectoral perspective, however, Finland does have a strategy, one that has propelled it to the top of the international rankings. Other countries might benefit from adopting this perspective on their reform work.
The second observation has to do with the importance of trust. Trust, of course, cannot be legislated. Consequently, this lesson may be the least useful to others wanting to learn from Finland, especially if one views trust as a precondition for the kinds of deep institutional reforms embodied in the development of the comprehensive school. But in the case of the relationship between teachers and wider society, one can argue that trust is at least as much a consequence of important policy decisions as it is a pre-existing condition. Given the respect that teachers have historically enjoyed in Finland, there was a solid base on which to build. But the combination alluded to above –much more rigorous preparation, coupled with the devolution of much greater decision-making authority over things
like curriculum and assessment – enabled teachers to exercise the kind of professional autonomy other professionals enjoy. This granting of trust from the government, coupled with their new-found status as university graduates from highly selective programmes, empowered teachers to practise their profession in ways that deepened the trust afforded them by parents and others in the community.
Asian teachers often complain about class sizes getting too small to find a useful range of student solutions to a problem in order to conduct a good class, instead of complaining that the class is too large to teach effectively, as in the United States.
Until recently, the teacher/pupil ratio in the United States and Japan were almost identical. But the Japanese chose much larger class sizes than are seen in the United States, up to twice the size of
United States classes. That enabled the Japanese to give teachers much more preparation time, lesson-development time, time to confer with other teachers about students facing particular difficulties, and time to tutor students who are behind in class. Same cost, very different approaches.
The example just given shows how both countries had similar ratios of students to teachers. Japanese teachers traded larger class size for more time to plan and work with small groups of students, while American teachers opted for smaller classes and less time to plan and work with small groups of students.