Culture of the United States: Encyclopedia II - Culture of the United States - Education

Culture of the United States - Education

Main article: Education in the United States

In the American educational system children are generally required to attend school from the age of five or six until age 16, with the majority continuing until they are at least 17 or 18, or have graduated from high school. The public education systems vary from one state to another but generally are organized as follows:

• Age five: Kindergarten
• Ages six-11: Elementary school. Children start in grade 1 and advance to grade 5 or 6.
• Ages 12-14 or 11-14: Junior high school or middle school (usually grades 7-8 or grades 6-8, respectively).
• Ages 14-18: High school (usually grades 9-12 or 10-12, depending on whether the community uses middle schools or junior high schools).

The entire span of primary and secondary education, from Kindergarten to grade 12, is often abbrieved in the US as K-12 or K12, which in spoken American English is rendered as "K through 12" or "K 12."

Additionally, many children attend schools before they reach the age of five. These pre-schools are often private and not part of the public educational system although some public school systems include pre-schools.

Culture of the United States - Public education

Public education in the United States is provided by the individual states, not by the federal government (except in the limited circumstances of public schools on military bases, provided for the dependents of members of the armed services). All states provide public school education from kindergarten through the twelfth year of high school free of charge; further, the federal government does not establish a standard nationwide curriculum. Rather, the curriculum is typically established by state educational departments or local school districts, and teachers in many districts may have wide discretion to determine what is taught in the classroom.

Increasingly, however, more comprehensive statewide curricula are being developed. Also, as of 2005, there is increasing state and federal pressure to quantify teaching efficacy using results from standardized tests (cf. No Child Left Behind), which tends to lead to a more uniform curriculum. This trend toward educational standardization, which has been attributed with a concommittant decline in flexibility in teaching, and other reforms—such as the use of whole language methodology for teaching reading in primary school, instead of the more traditional phonics-based approach—promoted in recent years have been controversial. Other criticisms of recent educational trends include an increasing lack of post-secondary scholarships and subsidies.

Funding of the public school systems is most often provided primarily at the local level,with money obtained from county or city property taxes used to fund the public schools (in conjunction with additional funds from the state and federal governments).

Culture of the United States - Private education

Private school education in the United States at the primary and secondary levels generally receives little or no governmental support in the form of direct funding or subsidies, although non-profit bodies running private schools may receive favorable tax status. Conversely, because of the constitutional prohibition regarding governmental establishment of religion, most private religious schools are in fact barred from such direct governmental support.

Most of the private institutions have traditionally been religious institutions funded by, for example, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish communities. Some private secular schools, military schools, and multi-lingual schools also exist. Private secular and multi-lingual elementary and secondary education may cost $10,000 to $20,000 per year per student in large metropolitan areas, placing these schools out of reach of all but the wealthiest of middle- and upper-class families. However, many of these schools provide academic scholarships and need-based assistance. Religious schools vary in price, from nearly free to costs on par with private secular schools. Poorer families may send their children to these lower-priced schools for a religious education, or because they consider the schools better than the available public schools. Home schooling is allowed in many states and is an alternative for a small minority of households. The motivation for home schooling is often religious or political. Many times, home schooling is used because of particular sports.

Culture of the United States - Higher education

The United States is a great center of higher education, boasting more than 1,500 universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning.

Common postgraduate degrees are master's degrees or Ph.D.s, or specialized professional degrees such as a J.D. for a lawyer, an MBA for a businessperson or an M.D. for a physician.

As with the lower level public education system, there is no national public university system in the United States; each state has its own public university system. There are also many privately run colleges, universities, and trade schools, some of them religiously affiliated. State university tuition ranges from nearly free on up, but is generally significantly lower than at private schools, and is often lower for state residents than for out-of-state students.

The most prestigious private universities of the United States are the eight Ivy League schools. There are also a set of public schools known as the Public Ivies. All around the country, there are also many other colleges and universities, both public and private and of a variety of sizes, whose names carry prestige.

The U.S. federal government does provide some federal grants and loans for higher education to many families. Most universities offer academic scholarships and need-based aid; however, many students assume some of the cost of their own education through work and loans.

Students seeking officership in the United States Military may enroll in ROTC courses at most colleges and universities, or in one of service academies, such as West Point or Annapolis.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Education", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki