Maybe, this could be a little like comparing apples to oranges, somewhat. Finland’s population is about 5.2 million people. America’s population is about 303 million people. Finland’s landmass is about 117 million sq.mi. about the size of Arizona. Arizona also has about a half a million more people. Comparing a very large and ethnically diverse country as ours to Finland is skewed. A better comparison would be among China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil and the U.S. I think it would be safe to say that cherry picked, affluent, county in a urban area of America would do quite well in most comparisons, but to average all U.S. students in, that would definitely lower the overall scores.
Don’t get me wrong, there is whole lot of things that needs fixing with our educational system, mostly in my opinion is due to the stranglehold that the teachers’ union have over local and state school boards. Dissolving teachers’ unions, giving local authority to hire and fire, in one generation, I feel that we (U.S.) would be right back on top. Remember John Dewey, the father of the Modern Education system in America was a socialist. Socialism and unionism, twins from the same sow.
The US has 309 million people vice 303 million. We have added 28 million since 2000 or over 5 times the size of Finland.