School achievement according to PISA

The analysis of published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012 in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden resulted in several important conclusions. For most countries, a small but consistent increase in the level of achievement was observed from the mid1970s to around 1990 for both literacy and numeracy. Finland improved on literacy performance dramatically between the mid1980s and the mid-1990s. For all countries, performance declined from the late 1990s/early 2000s, which is hypothesised to be due to different factors in different countries.

There were different opinions about the reasons behind the improvement of literacy performance in Finland. The analysis by Gustafsson and Blömke supports the hypothesis that the successively developed part-time special education which focuses on reading and writing skills during the first years of schooling is a reason behind the unique improvement of literacy performance in Finland.146 Another analysis made by Sahlgren rejected the hypothesis that the Finnish comprehensive school reform, which was successively introduced during the 1970s, was behind the highperformance level in PISA.147 Instead, according to Sahlgren, Finland’s success appears to be the result of deep-rooted historical, socioeconomic, and cultural factors, combined with a resistance to the rising global tide of progressive teaching methods.

Until the end of the 1990s, the OECD’s comparisons of education outcomes were mainly based on the unreliable indicator of years of schooling. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), however, tests the knowledge and skills of students directly, through a metric that was internationally agreed upon. Data from students, teachers, schools, and systems are linked to facilitate understanding performance differences within and between countries.

The aim with PISA was not ‘to create another layer of top-down accountability, but to help schools and policy makers shift from looking upward within the education system towards looking outward to the next teacher, the next school, the next country.’ PISA counts what counts and makes that information available to educators and policymakers so they can make more informed

146 Kivirauma, J., & Ruoho, K. (2007). Excellence through special education? Lessons from the Finnish school reform. Review of Education, 53(3), 283–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-007-9044-1 147 Heller-Sahlgren, G. (2015). Real Finnish lessons: The true story of an education superpower. London:

Centre for Policy Studies.