National Education Policy and Programs: Insights from Finland

Since the mid-1990s, the United States has been losing its comparative advantage in education quality with the rest of the world. This is evidenced in recent global rankings; in 2009, the OECD Programme for International Study Assessment (PISA) released its international rankings of student performance in reading, mathematics, and science. The United States ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics. Finland, by contrast, ranked 3rd in reading, 2nd in science, and 6th in mathematics. In fact, since the publication of the first PISA results in 2001, Finland has consistently ranked in the very top tier of countries in all PISA assessments, and its performance has been especially notable for its consistency across schools. During the same period, Finland has also often been cited as one of the world’s most competitive economies. For these reasons, Finland is now seen by many as a major international leader in education.