The US Education System

• Main Points• history of the system and who controls it• structure of the system• how the different parts of the system operate

• Warm-up exercise: Spend two or three minutes with the person next to you listing what you think are the main differences between the Chinese and US education systems.

• Origins of the US education system – Puritan beginnings (pg 125)

• The Puritans were one of the religious groups who moved to New England to find a place where they could freely practice their religion.

• They were protestants with strict views about sin and morality.

• Their religion told them that they should learn about God and his ways mainly by reading the Bible, rather than by following the directions of the people in charge of the church, which was what happened in catholicism.

• This meant that in order for people to do the right thing, they first had to be able to read the Bible to find out what the ‘right thing’ actually was.

• Therefore the Puritans set out to teach as many as their people as possible how to read, so that they could learn more from the Bible.

• Their settlement was in Massachusetts, and here they started to set up a system of education to accomplish this goal.

• In 1634, the Puritans opened a ‘Latin Grammar’ school to prepare students for entry into college.

• In those days learning Latin and Greek was considered very important for higher education, and so students who wanted to go to college had to be prepared for these studies.

• In 1636 they created Harvard college, which was meant to train ministers (priests), so that future leaders of the church would be well educated.

• Laws were passed that taxed people on their property, and the money was used to pay for important things for the community, including education

• Other laws were passed which required all parents to make sure that their children were taught to read.

• Using public taxes for funding education, and compulsory education for children, are two important things that began with the Puritans, and still continue today.

• Different colonies in North America at that time had different systems of education.

• In Pennsylvania, there were a few different religious groups, and each made its own decisions about how to educate the children of its followers.

• In the Southern colonies, wealthy landowners could hire tutors for their children (mainly their sons), or send them overseas to England to be educated.

• As for the poor people, they often depended on the person they worked for to provide education.

• Black people’s children were usually not educated in the south, because they were slaves.

• Children who became an apprentice in a trade would usually be taught to read as part of their training, a system brought over from England.

• (A trade is a type of work involving skilled manual labour, that requires an apprenticeship to be served before becoming qualified eg. a baker, a carpenter, a blacksmith etc.)

• After the Declaration of Independence, control of the US was taken over by the federal government, but one the things that remained mostly under the control of the states was education.

• The states would usually leave the decisions about school policy up to the local governments, who would make up their own minds about what would be taught in the schools.

• Most of the decisions and money these days still comes from the states and local authorities.

• For example the age at which children must start attending school, and how many years they have to stay in school, is different in different states.

• The federal government can still make important decisions about the schools though.

• The ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy was started by George W. Bush when he first got elected as the US president.

• That law gave more money to the schools from the federal government, but only if they followed some new rules.

• The states had to give all of the school students tests to measure how much they were learning, although each state could make up its own test.

• Students who weren’t going well had to be given extra help.

• The results of the tests were also used to judge how good each school was compared with the other schools in the state.

• If schools were not good enough, they were threatened with punishments until they were forced to improve.

• Also, parents could find out how which schools were better, and if their child was not learning enough, they could transfer them to a better school.

• One problem with this system is that teachers only spend time on things that they know will be on the test, so the students may not get a very wide or well-rounded education.

• Questions:• What problems do you think this could cause

for schools in areas with a lot of people who don’t speak much english?

• Who controls China’s schools, the central government, or the local governments? Is it better or worse this way?

• What age do you think children should have to start school, and when should they be able to leave?

• Structure of the System (Elementary Schools and High Schools) pg 121-125

• Because the states have most of the control over the schools, each state has different rules about when children start school, and when they can leave.

• Starting with kindergarten, at around the age of 5 or 6, children in most states go to school until they are at least 16, although in some places they have to stay until they are 18.

• The types of schools in the US are also different in each state.

• Elementary school comes first, although some parents may send their children to pre-school before that.

• Usually elementary school will last from kindergarten until the 6th or 7th grade.

• Junior High School, or middle school, comes after that, depending on which area of the US.

• 6th/7th – 8th/9th grade would be a typical example of the Junior High School years.

• Senior High School would be 9th/10th grade until 12th grade.

• If the Senior High School goes from 9th – 12th grades, the 9th graders will be called freshmen, the 10th graders sophomores, the 11th graders juniors and the 12th graders seniors.

• The systems in different states are not all the same, and so in different places the schools are broken up into different sections.

• All children are given access to schools and are supposed to be given a basic education, but some parents don’t want their children to go to normal schools, for religious or other reasons.

• These parents can teach the children themselves, and this is known as homeschooling.

• Over a million children in the US are taught by homeschooling.

• The subjects the students are taught in the schools are mainly up to the local Board of Education, but because of the No Child Left Behind policy, the emphasis is on reading and mathematics.

• Other subjects which are usually taught are English, Science, Social Studies and Mathematics

• After the second world war, the progress made in many areas of science encouraged schools to change the way they taught.

• As a result, students were taught not just to memorise facts, but to spend more time trying to question and think for themselves, especially in science subjects.

• This trend has been reversed with the No Child Left Behind policy, because the tests must focus more on facts and figures.

• Also after the second world war, university education became much more popular.

• The schools became much more interested in preparing students for higher education, as university degrees became necessary to getting a good job.

• Because there is a lot of competition for the good universities and colleges, students are rated not only on their marks, but other things as well.

• High school records are important, but universities may also look at what their teachers say about the students.

• The students will also have an interview with someone from the college, to see if they are suitable to study there.

• While in their final year of high school, students must also sit for exams called the Student Aptitude Tests, usually called the SATs.

• These tests are meant to find out how well the students have learnt the basic subjects taught in school.

• Colleges often also look at the activities students have been involved in at high school, like sports, clubs, societies and volunteer work, to see if they are well-rounded people.

• When students finish their final year of high school, they are awarded their High School Diploma.

• Students who drop out of high school before they finish can still return to study as an adult.

• They can get a General Education Development (GED) certificate.

• Questions?• Do you think parents can do a good job

teaching their own children?• What other disadvantages might children

whose parents choose homeschooling face?

• Higher Education• Higher education in the US is made up of a

few different types of school.• There are universities, colleges, technical

training schools and community colleges, and each type usually offers a slightly different system.

• The universities have the undergraduate studies, usually four years for a bachelor degree, and also the graduate schools, for master’s and PhD studies.

• The colleges are usually just for the four year undergraduate degrees.

• Students who have finished high school can also study at a technical training school, to learn specific technical skills, if they don’t want to spend four years on a more general degree.

• Community colleges have only 2 years of study, and are much cheaper than normal colleges, and usually anyone can study there, no matter what marks they got in high school.

• Students at community colleges can try to get a job with a lower qualification after finishing, or they can transfer into a 4-year course at a college to complete their degree.

• The shorter, 2 year course of study is called an associate degree.

• Many college courses in the US are liberal arts courses, meaning that they study not only a specialist area, but a wide range of other subjects as well, especially in the first 2 years of the course.

• In the 3rd and 4th years of the course, the junior and senior years, the students will then have to choose a major and specialise.

• Students may usually also choose a minor, which is another specialty of less classes, and perhaps some other subjects if their schedule allows.

• Some students may also study a double-major, doing two majors in the same degree, usually in related subjects.

• The State Colleges and Universities in the US are operated and funded by the state government, and each state has at least one of these type of universities.

• The private colleges and universities are run by private organisations, and will usually have higher fees than the state ones.

• The quality of the universities and colleges in the US is not determined by the government, but by outside organisations.

• The Ivy League schools are usually considered to be some of the best in the US.

• Originally the name Ivy League came from the sporting division which they were a part of, as sports are an important part of university life.

• The Ivy League schools, all in the Northeastern part of the US, are the oldest and most prestigious in the US, and are among the best in the world.

• Ivy League schools: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

• Other schools in the US also renowned for high quality are places like Stanford and MIT.