Finland on the BBC: Education key to economic survival.
And in particular, she says the country's educational success can be attributed to the "unified" school system, which sees children staying at the same school between the ages of seven and 16, rather than having primary and secondary schools.
This is heavily debated in Finland. Large portions of the arguing crowd posit that both Finland and the kids would be much better off if the emphasis on unification was much weaker.
My take is that all that is beside the point. The primary purpose of school in western society is not to teach well. If that happens, it is a side product, considered welcome by some and unnecessary by others. The primary purpose is to build national identity and thereby large-scale social cohesion, not exactly consensual hallucinations come naturally to humans.
This is an issue where I both feel strongly and am wildly divergent from the common opinion. John Taylor Gatto wrote a book about what some of the criticism is about: The Underground History of American Education. I don't agree on half what he says, and had he ever heard of me he wouldn't agree on a third of what I say, but you should read it anyway.