Pia, I'm sure you'll have a great time in Mexico, seeing as you are open-minded and have a good grasp of reality. The racist, classist, close-minded, downright ludicrous statements spewing so freely from the mouths of people who were educated by one of the worst education systems in the developed world are unfortunately becoming gospel in the good ol' U.S. of A. And about the U.S. being in charge...take a look at the value of our money, the fracas that is our educational system, our insurance industry mess and the widening gap between the rich and poor, and we're starting to resemble our neighbor to the south. Start learning Chinese, fascists!

I have to agree that some of the responses so far reflect a closed-minded, racist point of view. Yes, there are cultural differences which are learned, and yes there are physical racial differences that can contribute towards a person's ability to perform certain sports better than another person. And different cultures value different things. And we have all of them in America, which makes it difficult to agree on anything. So, as lovely as the Finnish system sounds to me, our numbers and variety of cultures would make it difficult to excecute here in America.
Think about the founding of America, and the doctrine of "manifest destiny", which is what the development of our country is based upon. A pretty arrogant point of view, really: hey, we're destined to have this land from sea to sea, just because....But, by taking the land, we have formed a country based upon freedom of the individual, mainly freedom of religion, with our shores open to all those who needed it. Now, of course we can't continue to let everyone in (perhaps we succeeded a bit too well). Survival of the fittest was really how the west was won, but eventually we discovered we needed a bit of a safety net for the people at the very bottom. We used to have horrible poverty in some of our rural areas (Appalachia for one) and in our cities. The labor unions helped to fight for the rights of working people, and the lives of those workers at the lower end of the economic scale improved greatly. Government did step in, especially with Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty. Our poverty rate has come down tremendously over the years (It was lowest under Bill Clinton), and now stands at 12.7%, with various minority populations considerably higher than that. Under Bush, the poverty rate has been steadily climbing. Now the arguement between true conservatives and liberals centers on the quality and form that the safety net takes, and the government regulations which force corporations to be concerned about working conditions, fair labor laws, pollution, benefits, etc. Conservatives forget that much of what contributes to their quality of life was fought for by liberals and yes, lawyers. Another big fight between conservatives and liberals is over a woman's right to choose i.e., abortion and reproductive rights. Bush has now mixed religion into it, which is in my opinion the very worst thing about him--his insistence upon injecting religion into government is offensive and against the constitution. He actually listed Harriet Meier's fundamentalist Christian religion as an important qualification for the Supreme Court.

But I really wanted to respond to Silvita's comment about how bad our education system is. As a teacher for more than 20 years, I am weary of hearing about it. Let me give you a few facts: The U.S. is the only country with a mandate to educate every citizen, including those with every level of disability, those who just showed up to school and know no English ( and it's the conservatives who voted that we can't teach the students in their native language at all), those with no parents, parents in jail, homeless kids, kids from neighborhoods with drive by shootings.... We are never allowed to kick anyone out of school due to their lack of interest, rudeness, violent behavior....(that explains why private schools "do better" because they expell the "bad" students. The kids that do well are from wealthy families and from families whose culture places a huge priority on education. Unfortunately, though there are exceptions of course, that doesn't include Mexican Americans or blacks, though, I repeat there are plenty of exceptions. Generally speaking, the higher the income of the parents,regardless of skin color or ethnicity, the higher the grades, the higher the test scores, the more likely the child is to care about school, be respectful of the teachers, and simply do their homework. You have no idea how many inner city kids simply never do their homework--even if you provide time after school, tutoring and transportation home. When you call the parents, they are shockingly ineffective. If you ask me, it's our American culture that's screwing up education, not the teachers or the schools. I can't tell you how many of my students have 4 or 5 or more siblings from as many different fathers, none of whom are involved. And no, it's not because they get paid more for each kid, that "liberal" Bill Clinton did away with that.
I don't know what the answers are, but America might just be way too complicated of a culture to adapt Finland's ways. But it does sound nice....

Aidance: Finland's system does not even sound nice to me. Who wants to be "taken care of"? As far as out education system is concerned, perhaps a good place to start and make a drastic change would be to do away with the tenure system, so that the nonproducing teachers can be canned. I am sure that the NEA would yell at the top of their lungs over that.

There is no doubt about it, us conservatives are all rotten to the core.

Pia,

Racial determinists? Haha...do you think they only exist in America? Or do you think they do not exist in Finland? Society itself is a racial determinist - both America and Finland, and every other country! It is called reality. What you are describing is how things SHOULD be, but not how they actually are. How old are you? College student? 20's?

And how is it possible that your country does not have a higher percentage of blacks? You make it sound like a Utopia - I mean if there are no racial determinists in Finland, then why don't you actively recruit blacks, Africans and others to come live in your properous country? I think if this news gets out in America, you are going to have countless black immigrate to Finland! Haha...

And you think there are no racial differences only cultural differences? Come on this is an age old debate in Psychology and Sociology that has been basically laid to rest - there are both racial and cultural differences. Anyone educated on the subject will tell you this! You mean you actually believe that genetics plays no role in human development? Is this really the position you want to take?! Haha...there is countless research to debunk your theory.

Yes, we do have racial determinists in Finland, where have I said we don't? I'm just not one of them.
Show me those piles of research that prove to me that members of different racial groups are born with certain psychological characteristics and I'll reconsider. I know this guy called Hitler who did a lot of research in the field, maybe you should start there.

Re: doing away with the tenure system so that non-producing teachers can be fired.....By what do you measure "production?" Test scores, grades, college entrance success, what? Of course there are lousy teachers who should be removed, and we need to find better ways to do that, but quantifiable measures only show us the "quality" of the students' families. The same teachers who, all of us would agree, are excellent, are finding that in the past their students were hard-working and motivated, but now, so many of them simply won't do the work. They don't care. So, how do you go on when more than half your class didn't do the assignment? They go on anyway, leaving half the class in the dust. But in the wealthier schools, the students are even more motivated than they were in my day. They are competing more and more to get into college, and a higher and higher percentage of students goes on to college. Which brings me to another point. How is it possible that we teachers are doing such a poor job if more and more students are going on to college, more minorities are taking the SAT's and honors classes? The University of California has had to raise their standards over the last few years because too many California students were qualifying for entrance. So, how is it that we're doing so badly?? Well, one explanation is that now, ALL test scores factor into the equation to measure student learning. That includes students with little or no English speaking skills, severely mentally handicapped (IQ's of 50 and less) and kids born brain-damaged from crack, etc. It used to be that Special Education students and limited English speakers did not have to take these standardized tests, so their failures didn't bring down the averages. Of course, the wealthier schools have fewer of these "at risk" students in their populations. Also, many of these "less innately intellectually gifted" students used to be tracked into vocational training, which has all but disappeared due to the emphasis on college prep. Yes, our technology has created more demand for college graduates, and we've basically lost our manufacturing jobs, so college prep is important. But when was the last time you had a cabinet made in your house, or hired a plumber, and how much did the labor cost you? Surely there are still some good jobs out there that don't require college degrees. It would be nice if craftmanship were still valued. Kids don't have time to study these subjects even as electives because they are being forced to take math, science, history, etc for each of their four years in high school.
How many comprehensive high schools still exist that have woodshop, electronics, home economics, as well as drama, music, physical education for 4 years, driver's education?
But you're right, we need to get rid of bad teachers, and we need to encourage smart people to go into and stay in teaching. Most beginning teachers leave after two years. The teacher's unions need to make some adjustments. Teachers need to be given a lot more respect, and lower class sizes.
That's enough for now.....

Pia,

here are a few to get you started -

http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/RandRProgressIntell2003.pdf

http://www.cpsimoes.net/artigos/bell_mainstr.html

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

Countless research has shown that the IQ level of blacks is about 15 points lower than whites on average and about 20-25 points lower than East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Indian for example). Hispanics fall in between whites and blacks. However, as one of the articles states, a similar trend has been found for many types of determinant tests such as the GRE, SATs, etc. and this trend has been found in Europe, Canada, America and other countries. If it was truly only cultural as you claim, why does the trend continue across different cultures (Canada, England and America, for example)?

You will find many theorists, Psychologists, etc. that support the idea that there are both racial and cultural determinants, but not many are as naive as you to suggest everything is cultural.

In which of these places (Europe, Canada, USA) do you also not find that the blacks are worse off than the whites and that they are discriminated, causing them to form communities with distinct cultures? The difference is that you think the fact that they are worse off is caused by their own characteristics, I believe it's a vicious circle. I'm sure you would get similar results if measuring IQ of poor and middle class people - I don't believe that IQ is independent of external factors.
It's the same thing when measuring differences in IQ between men and women: how can you really say that the differences are genetic when you have no situation where women and men would have grown up with the exact same norms and expectations?

And if you believe in these results, would you say that white males are the best choices for higher posts within for example the government? And in what way are these differences causing the problems in society? Blacks are stupid so they become criminals and whites are smart so they go to college or start their own successful business?

Alando, if it pleases you to believe all that stuff, and to think it all matters so much, so be it. Let's hope you don't run for office and set policy based upon your beliefs. None of the research can explain why--what percent genetics, what percent environment. And since there is absolutely nothing we can do about genetics, short of social engineering--here, you poor black woman, you breed with this Nobel prize winner to improve your stock--I wouldn't spend too much time on it. Or, perhaps you'd like to do the research: Find sets of newborn dark-skinned identical twins living in poverty and send one to rich white families worldwide and leave the other in squalor--then take intelligence tests 20 years later. Of course you'd need an equal number of rich white twins, one of which would have to be sent off to say, the Sudan....

It might be worth improving the cultural environment for everyone, which I believe is Pia's point. The Finns have decided that improving the lot of the group will empower the individuals to excell. In America, theoretically we empower the individual to excell, which is supposed to bring up the group. It's really about a world view which values reaching out to the less fortunate and keeping them from hitting the bottom. More importantly, what is the most effective way to reach out--what constitutes help and what is simply throwing money down a sewer? And what policies should the government follow? Clearly, whatever Clinton did (and he would be considered moderate, even to the right by Europe's liberals) helped everyone-- the rich got richer, the middle class got richer and the poor got richer. Bush's economic policies aren't faring so well. The poor and middle class are getting poorer and the ultra-rich are getting ultra-richer.
But isn't it amazing how all of us are so fixated on monetary prosperity? Perhaps we'd all be better off measuring our success based upon how much love we share in our families, how unselfish we become, how developed we become in music and the arts, how wise our elders are, how much we cooperate with each other, encourage greatness in our fellow humans, etc. etc. And, these are all things that teachers do--we are raising your children since you are not. We teach mutual respect, cooperation skills, patience, committment, focus, courage. On these measures we are doing very well. Our schools, though integrated, are safe places, where in most cases the biggest fight is some cat fight between two girls fighting over the same guy. Racial or sexual harrassment is not tolerated. These are more reasons why we don't successfully get every kid to excell in reading, math and science. We spend an awful lot of time being Mom, Dad, counselor, preacher as well as teacher.
Lighten up Alano. As Martin Luther King once said "We are all one." I wonder what his IQ was?

I think testing people with a generic test often skews the results. As an example, in America, when you apply a general knowledge test it is skewed towards white society and its knowledge of basic facts, and therein lies the problem in testing. If the test itself was based on a broader spectrum of American knowledge, it would mean more.

The problem is, how do you make tests that fill that void? How do you make the tests fair to people from all cultural backgrounds? The fact is, nobody has found that answer, and if they did, we'd see a marked difference in tests.

On sports in America particularly. Young black men particularly see sports as a way out of what may seem like certain poverty for them. White kids on the other hand have a social life with enough money that working hard at sports at a young age, hardly seems as important. Its at that juncture the future ability of a young person will develop, because sports are something that a person can teach themselves, and they get better with a sport the harder they have to work at it, and because escape from poverty is a reality for some young Americans, they end up playing against stiffer competition from the time they are kids on, and develop their skills, and build their muscles, to remain highly competitive, and be better than the next kid.

In other words, hard work at a young age often shapes the ability level of a person from their early years on.

On tests... Since the vast majority of tests, including IQ, is based on "general knowledge," which family in America discusses general information that relates to knowlege, the most? It would be white mainstream society. They are exposed to this information daily, therefore have a better knowledge of statements made in questions. Does that make them smarter? No. It just means they have been exposed to more knowledge. A family that sits around a kitchen table discussing politics, world events, and potential vacations has a broader band of experienced discussion than a family that sits around a table trying to figure out how they're going to scrape together enough money to pay the rent, let alone enjoy the frills offered through affluence.

Pia,

I think people have misunderstood what you said. I don't believe for one moment you have brought anything up to make it appear that anyone is better than anyone else as a nation, or race. Your intent was to show how a system can work, and that you did. At the same time, I don't believe any of us are trying to knock what you said, but are trying to get a better handle on what does and doesn't work in societies. Your offering was a good one, because we've gotten into some excellent conversation over it.

Wolf