SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

PS

A comment to the More or Less posting indicated that the per-pupil expenditure is the relevant statistic and that in this sphere Finland spends more than other countries. Per-pupil expenditure is also available in Education at a Glance, Indicator B1. The data are analyzed in several ways, but no matter how you slice it, Finland is far from the biggest per-pupil spender. As an example, here are the rankings for cumulative per-student expenditure for all services over the theoretical duration of primary and secondary studies (expressed in US$). 

Luxembourg ($209.060); Switzerland ($141,013); Norway ($134,303); Iceland ($124,601); United States ($123,361); Denmark ($119,621); Austria ($118,930); Italy ($106,351); United Kingdom ($103,352); Ireland ($100,352); Sweden ($97,116); Slovenia ($96,239); Australia ($96,079); Belgium ($94,039); OECD Average ($93,775); Canada ($93,288); France ($92, 439); Japan ($91,716); Germany ($88,729); Netherlands ($86,603); Spain ($83,552); Finland ($82,868); Korea ($73,950); Portugal ($72,017); New Zealand ($71,614); Israel ($64,683); Hungary ($50,215); Estonia ($48,194); Poland ($46,557); Slovak Republic ($39,413); Russian Federation ($26,394); Mexico ($26,019); Chile ($25,072); Brazil ($16,844)

In education at least, it appears that you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.

More or Less - It Doesn’t Seem to Matter

There have been a number of comments on our blog about Finland, with one frequent commenter claiming that the OECD attributes Finland’s #1 status on the PISA test to the fact that it spends more than any other country on its education system. However, the 2009 edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance (click on Indicator B4: What is the total public spending on education?) shows no such thing. 

When public spending on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education is expressed as a percentage of total public expenditure, the OECD and its partner countries rank as follows: Mexico (15.1%); New Zealand (12.7%); Slovak Republic (12.5%); Iceland (12.4%); Brazil (12.3%); Chile (12.2%); Korea (11.3%); Ireland (11%); Estonia (10.6%); Australia (10.3%); United States (10%); Norway (9.8%); Denmark (9.4%); Israel (9.1%); Slovenia (9%); OECD Average (9%); Luxembourg (8.8%); Switzerland (8.7%); United Kingdom (8.7%); Poland (8.6%); Belgium (8.2%); Sweden (8.1%); Portugal (8%); Finland (7.9%); Netherlands (7.8%); Canada (7.7%); Spain (7.2%); Austria (7.2%); France (7.1%); Japan (7%); Italy (6.9%); Russian Federation (6.8%); Hungary (6.5%); Czech Republic (6.5%); Germany (6.3%)

When public spending on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education is expressed as a percentage of GDP, the OECD and its partner countries rank as follows: Iceland (5.2%); Denmark (4.8%); Israel (4.7%); New Zealand (4.7%); Sweden (4.4%); Slovenia (4%); Poland (4%); Belgium (4%); United Kingdom (4%); Finland (3.9%); Poland (3.8%); France (3.8%); Brazil (3.7%); Switzerland (3.7%); Ireland (3.7%); United States (3.7%); Portugal (3.7%); Austria (3.6%); Netherlands (3.6%); OECD Average 3.5%); Estonia (3.5%); Australia (3.4%); Hungary (3.4%); Italy (3.4%); Korea (3.4%); Korea (3.4%); Luxembourg (3.4%); Canada (3.3%); Mexico (3.3%); Czech Republic (2.8%); Germany (2.8%); Spain (2.8%); Japan (2.6%); Chile (2.5%); Slovak Republic (2.4%); Russian Federation (2%); Turkey (1.9%)

Based on the OECD’s statistics, there appears to be no correlation between spending and performance on international tests.

Abstinence is Even Safer Sex

When my son was in grade 7 or 8, his teacher brought in the apparatus for shooting up and proceeded to demonstrate to the class the correct way to inject heroin. After the lesson, my son asked the teacher why he had taught this lesson. In my opinion, it was a valid question.

Modern safe-sex classes raise some of the same issues, in that they make the assumption that students will be sexually active and therefore might as well do it safely.  A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has found that 12-year-olds who attended abstinence-only classes were less likely to have had sex over the next two years. 

Writing Students Off

It’s always hard to quantify things like students’ writing skills, but now the highly-respected University of Waterloo is reporting that fully 30% of their incoming students fail an exam testing their basic English language skills - a jump of five percentage points since a few years ago. “For years there’s been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students. Now there seems to be some solid evidence.”

Students with poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar skills are invariably students with poor composition skills. The reason why is explained in this article from our archives. We have a number of other articles that explain the various dimensions of the problem and suggest ways to help students improve their writing. Click here and then scroll down to the “Composition” and “Grammar” sections.