The last one struck as me very, very interesting. Only one standadatdized test in the entire k-12 system. Wow. Take that in consideration with this teacherhttp://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/12/how-to-widen-the-achievement-gaps/ who said this:

"My wife and I are both elementary teachers in the same district but at completely different schools. She teaches at a school with over 80% free and reduced lunch whereas my school has 7%. When I ask her about the policies in her school versus the policies we have in my school IN THE SAME SCHOOL DISTRICT, it led me to this conclusion: rich kids get taught, poor kids get tested."

"low child poverty rate [1]

fonetically logical language (every letter is pronounced same way whatever the word - it is pretty easy to teach a 2-3 year-old kid to read if you want to do it) [2]

we do not dub foreign movies, we just have Finnish subtitles. Kids are motivated to learn to read and while they watch movies, they have to read.

in all social classes (including heavy drug users etc.), it is taken as self evident that your kids should be literate.

we have public libraries everywhere, and it is common that kids go to library to read something after school (before parents come from work)

we do not test the kids all the time (and continuous testing is harmful for motivation). Only standardized test is the matriculation examination, which you take as 18-19 years old."

I agree testing is very interesting.

Also, how come Finland has the ability to change and adapt, while its hard for us to come to unified conclusions about simple topics? I think the Fin's care more morally.

I think this video demonstrates that well. There's so many gems in here: