Financial resources and student performance

Tonight I feel a little discouraged. I just read through the information on Beaverton School District's website about the dire financial straits we are in as a district and as a state. The numbers tell the story, but beyond the numbers, I feel that the district has the capacity and will to do all they can to make cuts judiciously, with teaching and learning as its highest priority. However, as it is every year, this is a long and drawn out process that puts stress on all 6,000 educators in the district and takes the focus off of teaching and learning. I remember now why I opted to take my professional leave in the spring, to get a break from budget drama and from state testing. Each spring, I feel the frustration of teaching time lost to working out testing schedules, testing multiple times in up to four different subjects, and an overall interruption to the curriculum.

No superintendent or individual at the state department of education has the power to change our budget situation. And, in an increasingly centralized education system, we have little power to redirect our time and attention to teaching and learning from the hours spent in a computer lab completing required state tests.

In Finland, I am trying to figure out how they balance it all. Look at exhibit 1, a table of per pupil expenditures in relation to scores on the PISA. (The PISA is the "Programme for International Student Assessment," the core measurement tool used to compare student performance across industrialized countries. It is developed by the OECD for the purposes of member countries.)



It case you can't read it, the U.S. spends 43% more on each pupil than Finland does. But Finnish students scored an average of 61 points higher than American students did on the PISA math assessment.

How can I reconcile this lower price tag with what I have seen in schools so far? These are beautiful buildings, with ample classroom space, labs, workshops; a wide-array of curricular options, low(er) teacher/student ratios, and well-paid, well-respected teachers. The atmosphere in a Finnish school is not one of rushing about getting from one place to the next, constant assessment, and exhausting schedules. Teachers work hard, but they and their students are much more relaxed.

And teacher/student contact hours are half of what they are in the U.S.? How can this be?

I have my work cut out for me.

Promised snowplow videos

Hi William Walker,

Here are the snowplow videos I wanted to post:

My Fulbright colleague from Olympia

Here's an article from the Olympian talking about my colleague Sarah Applegate who will be arriving in a few weeks.

Google Alerts

This article was emailed to me because I have signed up for a Google alert for the keywords "education" and "Finland." Reading the first paragraph made me laugh.

I haven't yet studied carefully the Common Core Standards, but I did get my hands on the Finnish national curriculum this week, and will make some comparisons of my own. Perhaps that will be the secret to finding the 'educational promised land (also known as “Finland”).'

Languages related to Finnish

Yes, it is true, Finnish is not related to any other European languages except Hungarian and Estonian. Finnish has something called the "partitive" case, which I just learned today in class. Actually, I should say that I was introduced to it today in class.

Here is a helpful map indicating which languages are in the same family as Finnish:



Today I learned how to say "There are four mice." - Kuvassa on neljä hiirtä. That's enough about Finnish for today.

Hello William Walker ES -Greetings from Finland!

Hello William Walker Elementary School! I am writing to you from Tampere, Finland. Tampere is Finland's third largest city. Right now it is covered in snow. Here is a picture that I took on a walk last weekend. Everything is white (or grey).



In Tampere today, the sun will rise at 9:29 am and sets at 3:38 pm. So, how many hours of daylight will I have today? It's 7:30am now, still hours away from sunrise.

Even during the day, it is quite dark here. I haven't yet seen the sun in Finland.

Let me tell you how I got here. On January 4th, I left Portland and flew to New Jersey. An hour later I left New Jersey and flew to Munich, Germany. That flight took almost nine hours. Finally, I flew from Munich, Germany to Helsinki, Finland.




Then I took a train to Tampere, which took an hour and forty-five minutes.

Tampere is the largest inland Scaninavian city. This means that it's is the largest city in the countries of Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland that is not located on the coast. There are about 215,000 people here. That's about twice the size of Beaverton, I think.


I live in a small apartment in an apartment building in town. I can walk wherever I need to go. But I dress up in warm clothes before I go anywhere. Here are a few pictures from my walk today:





Next time I will show you the university where I am working and the really cool machines they have in town to remove snow. Let me know what else you would like to know about Finland. I will try to find out. I am learning a little each day, but still have quite a lot to learn.