[Muzza]

Now, since I'm not in favor of any form of mandatory schooling it doesn't really matter to me exactly why the Swedish schools suck... But you must keep in mind that there was another, rather large reform in the early 90's: the responsibility for the schools were transferred from the state to the municipalities. This hasn't exactly worked out well either and surely has had impact on the PISA rankings (see e.g Maciej Zaremba's articles in DN, http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/maciej-zaremba-en-forolampning-... ).