Quote from: JA37 on January 02, 2012, 07:34:39 AM

Quote from: MoonShadow on January 01, 2012, 01:13:00 AM

This is a useless study. It compares government school systems to each other, based on arbitrary metrics comparing scores between groups of 15 year olds (an arbitrary age) in testing for arbitrarily chosen subjects. It would be trivial for any number of different private school systems in the US to crush Finland's numbers. Average scores for US students in government sponsored schools in the US suck, in part, because everyone knows that they suck so many parents with means don't send their children to government schools, so those government schools suck more. Compare Finland's scores to say, Covington Latin in Covington, Kentucky or St Francis High School in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky or Highlands Latin School in the Highlands district of Louisville, Kentucky and these scores would be embarressing. And those three are just a few that I could think of off the top of my head. For that matter, just comparing Finland's average scoring to the average American homeschooled high school aged student would make a lot of Finnish schoolteachers question the effectiveness of their careers considering what the average, untrained parent educator can do.

Of course the subjects, group and age are arbitrary. How else would you conduct a study if you don't select what you want to study, and who?
So the schools you named, they are attainable to anyone? Without cost to the individual family? Same with homeschooling? I would agree with you that a personal tutor would probably yield better results, but that's not a realistic option.
Here you have a school that provides education for everyone, on par with the best countries in the world, with less time spent.

Let's see a better system that enables all kids from a low income families to have the same chance as anybody else if they're just willing to work for it, not a system that favours the rich and stacks the deck against the poor.
Unless you're actually suggesting sending all kids in the US to those private schools that "would crush Finland's numbers" for a good and free education.

The education is not free, someone has to pay for it. Regardless, I have personally seen relatively poor families do very well while homeschooling, and I personally attended a private school that did and does accept students whose parents cannot pay for tuition. Homeschooling, generally speaking, is a much cheaper option than any other method; including taxpayer supported education. And with much better results. Furthermore, one can literally homeschool via an online 'distance learning' program associated with a state funded university for zero personal cost, and the results are similar. They are often called 'virtual schools'. So from a certain perspective, the US could literally homeschool every child willing to participate in that manner with a quality and free-to-them education. Whether or not the results would be competitive to Finland under such circumstances, I would not hazard a guess.