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Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

The author of this article would have his readers believe that out of all the things about Finland which make sense regarding their better achievement, the only element that really matters is that Finland doesn't have private schools.

Stated another way, the only thing that is causing public schools to fail in the US is the existence of private schools.

Eliminate private schools and suddenly the US will have achievement on par with Finland, if we are to believe this analysis.

Is it really that simple?

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I wouldn't say that it's quite that simple, but it rings true if you think about it from the perspective of the de facto power groups.

When private schools exist, those power groups send their children to the best private schools, and few "important" people care about the public system.

However, when private schools do not exist, and those power groups have to send their children into the public system, then suddenly a whole lot of "important" people will care about the state of the public system, which is to everybody's benefit. (Also to the benefit of those "important" people, because they also benefit from the positive externalities of a well-educated society.)

Obviously, it is possible for a public school system to degenerate into a de facto-tiered system, where schools in poorer districts fare much worse than schools in rich districts. So this is just one factor among many, but it is a factor.

Nope, you are completely misinterpreting the article. Perhaps, if you studied in a Finish school, you would have a better understanding of what the author was trying to say.

America's top schools are privately-run (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Andover, Exeter, etc). If we eliminated private schools, does the author expect better test scores?

The use of "school" here is about primary and secondary education, not University/College level tertiary education.

So? My point still stands. The best secondary schools, like Andover, Exeter, Harvard-Westlake, St. Paul's, Horace Mann, to name a few, are privately-run.

I wasn't disagreeing with your point, merely pointing out that in this context those were poor examples.

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