Mar 10, 2008

The Worst of Journalism, Part II

by Tim Ogden

One of our very first posts, way back in May 2006, was a “Worst of Journalism” citation for a USA Today article which painted Africa with a ridiculously broad brush. Thankfully, we haven’t come across another article since then that inspired a “Worst” designation—until last week. The Wall Street Journal ran this story nominally examining why Finland’s high school students score so highly on international science and math tests. The OECD sponsors triennial testing of 15-year-olds from around the world to evaluate each participating country’s relative performance in education. In the most recent tests, Finland scored near the top in science, math and reading.

The reporting is a textbook, no pun intended, example of how to string together a series of anecdotes to create the impression of reliable conclusions. The article quickly attributes Finnish success to a few easily observable features of Finnish schools including “a relaxed, back-to-basics approach” and a lack of “adults hovering.“ The article does not cite any controlled studies, any long-term research, or even quote experts who have done comparison studies. Instead, the author visited a model Finnish high school for a few days and spoke to teachers there and a few principals from schools in the U.S. A number of WSJ readers also note the serious flaws in the article, including the failure to offer comparisons to teaching methods in other high-scorers such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

Reporting like this only serves to muddy the waters for anyone trying to improve education in the US and elsewhere. The false impression readers get of cause and effect makes it all the harder for sound research on what works and what doesn’t to rise to the top.