"If Finland can manage to find the resources to invest in equalizing education for their young people, why can’t the United States?"

That's a good question. Perhaps you should ask an anthropologist , an ethnologist, or a historian. Or all three. Procrustean leftists are like neocons: they think that lifestyles that EVOLVED in one place can be IMPOSED in another.

The Finns don't have private education because they don't need it. We have it because we do. Fix the public schools by fixing the parents of the kids who don't go there to learn. Then, the private schools will simply wither away. We won't ban them, and a few will remain, but so long as they are not havens from schools where students don't want to learn, they won't be an important feature of the educational landscape. Make us Finns before you tell us to behave like Finns.