Education in the USA

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 624.

Although in general Americans prefer to limit the influence of government, this is not so where education is concerned.

All levels of government are involved in education and it is considered to be one of their most important responsibilities.

The federal government provides some money for education through the Department of Education. But the state and local government have direct control.

The federal government provides some money for education through the Department of Education. But the state and local government have direct control and are responsible for the education of students between the age of 5 and 18 or the years called kindergarten and the next five or six years, which are together called elementary school, and the next five or six years or grades seven to twelve are part of secondary school, and may be divided in different ways. In some places grades seven and eight are called junior high school. Other school systems have middle school, which lasts for three years. High school usually covers four years, from the ninth to the twelfth grades.

By some standards, American education seems to be very successful. Individual states have their own Boards of Education, which decide the curriculum and what students must have achieved before they can graduate from high school. Since control over education is mostly at local level, its quality varies greatly from place to place. There are many reasons for this but the most important is money. In general, the people who live in city centers tend to be very poor. Those with more money prefer to live in the suburbs. People in the suburbs pay higher taxes, so the schools there have more money to spend. Crime and violence are also serious problems in the inner cities, with some students taking weapons to school.

Most educational institutions in the USA are public, i.e. run by government, but there are some private schools which students pay a lot of money to attend. Many private schools have a high reputation but the opposition to private schools is not so strong as in Britain. Public or private education is much less of an issue than the difference between inner city and suburban schools. Most parents who have money are likely to spend it not by sending their children to private schools but by moving to a suburb where the public schools are good.

About 45 % of Americans have some post-secondary or further education and over 20% graduate from a college of university. High school students who want to study at a college or university have to take a standardized test. Most colleges offer classes only for undergraduate students studying for a bachelor's degree.

Most famous universities include Harvard and Yale, but many others have good reputation. Large universities often put most emphasis on research.

The US academic year may be divided into two semesters. Students take courses in a variety of subjects, regardless of their main subjects, because the aim of the curriculum there is to produce well-rounded people with good critical skills. Students take four or five courses consisting of lectures, discussion sections and lab sessions, each semester. Students are given grades at the end of each course.

Glossary