Actually, I don’t really think so. But if I were Diane Ravitch and looked at the trend in PISA for Finland as she looked at the trend in NAEP for New York City, I would see that Finland has declined in reading, math, and science. And then I would (wrongly) conclude that Finland sucks and is doing things all wrong.
Table 5.1 Finland’s mean scores on reading, mathematics and science scales in PISA (p. 118)
| PISA 2000 | PISA 2003 | PISA 2006 | PISA 2009 | |
| Mean score | Mean score | Mean score | Mean score | |
| Reading | 546 | 543 | 547 | 536 |
| Mathematics | 544 | 548 | 541 | |
| Science | 563 | 554 |
Or perhaps if I really wanted to be like Diane Ravitch I would switch from looking at trends to levels of achievement, like when she looks at Massachusetts. In that case, I would still think Finland is great and doing everything right.
Or maybe I could be like Diane Ravitch and switch to a different test that produced results more to my liking, like when Diane stopped paying attention to NAEP for New York City when it showed significant gains and started focusing instead on problems in the state test measures.
That’s the problem with being a manipulative propagandist. It’s so hard to keep your story straight from one deception to another.
Posted by Jay P. Greene 
Jay P. Greene's Blog 