Further to my post on the remarkable failure of Scandinavian education systems to develop their students to anywhere near the levels indicated by their IQ potentials, a professor of mathematics at a Wisconsin university sent me data on the percentage of respondents in the TIMSS who gave the correct answer to the following question:
Which shows a correct method for finding 1/3 – 1/4?
A (1 – 1)/ (4 – 3)
B 1/ (4 – 3)
C (3 – 4)/ (3*4)
D (4 – 3)/ (3*4)
Below are the results. Do bear in mind that these are 8th graders we are talking about.
| A | B | C | D | |
| Korea | 2.7 | 6.9 | 4.2 | 86 |
| Singapore | 4.8 | 5.5 | 6.5 | 83.1 |
| Taipei | 2.9 | 7.7 | 7 | 82 |
| Hong Kong | 4 | 8.7 | 10 | 77 |
| Japan | 15.4 | 11.1 | 8.2 | 65.3 |
| Russia | 12.3 | 18.8 | 4.8 | 62.8 |
| Average | 25.4 | 26 | 9.4 | 37.1 |
| US | 32.5 | 26.1 | 10.7 | 29.1 |
| Finland | 42.3 | 29.5 | 8.7 | 16.1 |
| Sweden | 14.4 | |||
| Chile | 11.7 |
Finally, an international ratings list on which those smarmy, goody-goody Scandinavians don’t come on top! They barely do better than Chile, a country that got 421 (equiv. IQ ~88) in the PISA 2009 survey. Here is what he has to say on the matter:
One interesting fact is that among the 42 countries which tested 8th grade students, Finland had the highest percent of students who picked answer A and the third lowest percent correct. Chile had 11.7 correct and Sweden had 14.4 percent correct. The Finnish result is likely a surprise to the people who have praised the Finnish school system for their results on another international test, PISA. However university and technical college mathematics faculty in Finland will not be surprised. See [this] article signed by over 200 of them.
Anybody who suggests the progressive/neoliberal education policies of the Scandinavian countries are worthy of emulation should be presented with these figures and laughed out of the room.
