>No, I don't know a single Finn or Korean. And even if I did, one person's circle of acquaintances is not sufficient to make meaningful conclusions about the quality of school system in any of their countries
Are you allergic to thinking ? Nobody suggested that. Luckily we have these things called science and statistics which work well together and lots scientists and statisticians who make detailed studies of education - including how it compares around the world and what does and doesn't work well. We also have huge organisations like UNICEF which funds international studies of this nature. We don't have to GUESS who have the best school systems - we have FACTS.
Among the things these scientists compare is - how many students manage to get in to high quality tertiary education (what Americans would call Ivy League schools) - and how they perform there (the first year drop-out rate is one of the best measurements of the pre-university school system).
>Big deal. I graduated trilingual too (Ukrainian, Russian, English) â" and most of Europe does, I guess, out of necessity. I don't know, how well they write (in any language) or whether all the graduates can solve a quadratic equation. If you have any evidence, that Finns (or South Koreans) are, indeed, the best educated in the world, you should've offered citations two posts ago...
We were comparing with America, not Europe where multilingualism is common. As for citations - google -it this is an EXTREMELY well studied field and there is very high consensus because there is such a massive abundances of ways to measure outcomes and they have little to no dissagreement. I gave one example above, another would be the likelihood of somebody to find work straight out of high-school compared to a drop-out. The number of people who manage to get PHDs is another.
>That was a great opportunity to list some MORE accurate alternatives, but you missed it. Likely, because none exist.
No, because I didn't realize I was talking to a person with absolutely no knowledge of the subject he is making such absolute statements about...
Well - one example of a MUCH more accurate measurement is through continuous grading via projects and assignments.
Exams barely, if at all, reflect actual skills in a subject - they reflect skill at passing exams and these skills rarely correlate.
Exams create disrupted educational incentives causing teachers to teach "to the exam", students to study "to the exam" and NOBODY to actually LEARN anything - not to mention as Stevin Levitt so conclusively proofed standardized testing GUARANTEES the highest degrees of teaching and corruption of any form of student assessment.
There are many, many educational systems without exams - even large universities like Harvard are moving away from them because the evidence of their complete lack of reliability is becoming too large to ignore.
People who think exams are the only, let alone a GOOD, way to measure ability are almost always people who went to school before anybody really studied this stuff - never really encountered any other ideas and think their experience is the only one that's possible - that BY ITSELF proves they had an inferior education.
The Waldorf education system (considered universally as one of the most comprehensive and highest quality education systems there is - found in the most expensive private schools around the world) for example is completely exam-less. In countries where matriculation requires a final government-mandated exam, their students still take those exams and outperforms those students who had, had exams throughout their school career - DESPITE not having been coached to exams every year since they had never HAD an exam before.
I have some personal issues with Waldorf (too much religion in there for my liking) but even so I can recognize that it's massively superior to the Prussian-style public school systems that still dominate most of the world DESPITE producing inferior outcomes everywhere it's used.
Exams were fine when the sole purpose of schools were to produce soldiers and factory workers. In an age where they need to produce people who think - not just people who obey orders (and what society needs is NOT just lots of really obedient people - but rather the exact opposite, lots of people who dislike and question authority) - they are worthless. You can't test critical thinking with an exam.