A Brief Account of American Education: Differences and Similarities

2.2 A Brief Account of American Education: Differences and Similarities

Every American is entitled to an education. School attendance is compulsory for all children. Students attend school five to seven hours a day, five days a week for nine months each year, from September to June. Public education from kindergarten through grade 12 is tax-supported; no tuition is required.

About 85 per cent of American children attend public schools. The other 15 percent choose to pay tuition fees to attend private schools. The latter ones are mostly run by religious organizations and generally include religious instruction.

In spite of the above said the United States do not have a national system of education. Education is considered to be a matter for the people of each state. Although there is a Federal Department of Education, its function is merely to gather information, to advice, and to help finance certain educational programs. Education, Americans say, is “a national concern, a state responsibility, and a local function”. As a result, each of the 50 state legislatures is free to determine its own system for its own public schools.

In turn, however, state constitution gives the actual administrative control of the public schools to local communities. There are some 16000 school districts within the 50 states. School boards made up of individual citizens elected from each community oversee the schools in each district. They, not the state, set school policy and actually decide what is to be taught.

The major result of the decent realization is that there is enormous amount of variety and flexibility in elementary and secondary education throughout the nation. In public schools, decisions about school curriculum, teacher certification, and student achievement standards are made by Boards of Education at the state and/or district level. For example, although all states today require that children attend school until a certain age, it varies from 14 to 18 years. Or, as another example, in about 60 per cent of the states, local schools are free to choose any teaching materials or textbooks which they think are appropriate. In the remaining states, only such teaching materials may be used in public schools which have been approved by the state boards of education. Some school systems require that a high school student completes three years of mathematics, before graduation. The national average however is lower.

Funding for schools is another source of difference. Communities and states that are able or willing to pay more for school buildings, materials, and teachers, almost always have better educational systems than those that cannot or do not.

Because of the great variety of schools, and the many differences among them, no one institution can be singled out as typical or representative. Yet there are enough basic similarities in structure among various schools and systems to permit some general comments.

Most schools start at the kindergarten level. There are some school districts that do not have this beginning phase, and others which have an additional “pre-school” one.

Elementary (primary) and secondary (high) schools are organized on one or two bases: eight years of elementary school and four years of secondary school, or six years of elementary, three years of junior high school and three years of senior high school.

Although there is no national curriculum there are almost always required subjects at each level. Primary school children in the United States learn much the same things as do children of the same age in other countries.

Almost every elementary school instructs children in penmanship, science, mathematics, music, art, physical education, language arts (which include reading, writing and grammar), and social studies (which include geography, history, and citizenship).

Most secondary schools require students to take English, mathematics, science, social studies, and physical education. In addition to this “core” curriculum, students choose “elective” courses in their areas of interest.

What makes curriculum offerings more similar is a growing trend to adopt certain types of educational programs and competencies by state legislatures across the country. For instance, since 1985 nineteen states have passed legislation requiring students from schools throughout the state to pass a minimum competency test before they receive their high school diplomas. This, plus the fact that an additional twenty-three states have some form of minimum competency testing, creates strong pressure for curricular uniformity. Course content is also similar because expressed social goals are quite uniform throughout the United States. Additionally, much of what is taught in schools is influenced by the books and materials that are used. Because the large textbook companies sell books and series of books from state to state and from coast to coast, commonalities are further emphasized.

Another reason for similarity is the general uniformity of schooling procedures. For instance the number of hours of instruction and days in the school year is practically the same throughout the United States. Other similarities in schooling procedures include the length of classes, the time between classes, the use of bells, the number of pupils in each class, the awarding of credits (Carnegie units) for the completion of courses, the requirement of a fixed number of Carnegie units for graduation, the bureaucratic structure within the school systems. Also similar are the school rituals, such as book fairs, pep rallies, and graduation ceremonies.

In addition to curricular offerings and schooling procedures, actual teaching methods provide another element of uniformity in schools today. Verbal explanations, presentations and questioning, and assigning seatwork and drill on new material are among the main tools of the teaching trade.