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A teacher works with seventh-grade students at a school in Helsinki, Finland  The Harvard education professor Howard Gardner once advised Americans, “Learn from Finland, which has the most effective schools and which does just about the opposite of what we are doing in the United States.” Following his recommendation, I enrolled my 7-year-old son in a primary school in Joensuu, Finland, which is about as far east as you can go in the European Union before you hit the guard towers of the Russian border. Read More:: Pentagon Makes SHOCK Announcement About Women In Military, People TICKE OK, I wasn't just blindly following Gardner — I had a position as a lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland for a semester. But the point is that, for five months, my wife, my son and I experienced a stunningly stress-free, and stunningly good, school system. Finland has a history of producing the highest global test scores in the Western world, as well as a trophy case full of other recent...

Bill and Melinda Gates have pledged to commit $1.7 billion over the next five years to bolstering public education in the US. The money will get divided into three buckets: public school curriculum, "big bets," and charter schools. The investment is the largest the Gateses have made since entering the education space 17 years ago. Gates wants schools and educators to drive the process. In a speech delivered to the Council of the Great City Schools, the former CEO of Microsoft outlined his foundation's plan to standardize public school curricula,  improve teaching quality, assist charter schools, and and collect better data to guide future changes. ::Also Read:: "Education is, without a doubt, one of the most challenging areas we invest in as a foundation," Gates said in the speech, which was transcribed in a Gates Notes blog  post. "But I'm excited about the shift in our work and the focus on partnering with networks of schools." “Every student sho...