Something Fishy's Going on in Sweden

Sweden is one of the few countries that has a school voucher program allowing parents to choose a public or private school, at public expense.

This week, the National Agency of Education("Skolverket") came out with a study comparing, among other things, student achievement in public versus private schools. The main finding was that private schools outperformed public ones. Few people questioned it.

Yup, you heard me right. People pretty much accepted that conclusion without a hiccup. Even the teachers' union, which in Sweden has nothing against private schools, was unperturbed.

What really got a lot of people worked up, most notably the teachers' union, was that the study found no link between teacher certification and student achievement.

For anyone familiar with the U.S. evidence, that's not news. Teacher certification in this country is not in any way tied to classroom performance, it's a credential handed out for having taken a particular set of ed. school classes. No one should be surprised that it has little or no effect on student outcomes.

What certification does accomplish is to create an artificial barrier to entry into the teaching profession, making it possible to demand higher wages and better benefits for people who still choose to become teachers (or who already are teachers).

The outrage over the certification conclusion has apparently been so fierce that the Swedish Minister of Education (the Ministry is a separate government entity from Skolverket) questioned whether the report should have been published in the first place.

Later that same day, Skolverket actually "withdrew" the report (apparently without giving a reason). Here's where things get interesting. According to a Swedish friend and colleague:

under the Swedish constitution, a minister is not allowed to give instructions to the head of a government agency. The agencies are supposed to be "independent" and are only bound by formal government instructions that have to be officially decided upon by the government. So, the minister is in trouble.

Somethin' mighty fishy's goin' on here, and a political scandal may even be in the offing. If I get any more details, I'll post them. Stay tuned.