us education system essay

• Education Comparison: United States and Pakistan Words: 2276
• Charter Schools Impact on the US Educational System Words: 2064
• The Education System in Japan Words: 1117
• Comparing Education in USA and in Saudi Arabia Words: 1187
• Comparing Education Systems of Britain and Finland Words: 1653
• School Sex Education and Teenage Pregnancy in the United States Words: 898
• How American Education System Prepares Students to Thrive Words: 1747
• European and American Education Systems: Similarities and Differences Words: 1130
• Immigration of Chinese Students to United States High Schools Words: 620
• Public and Private Schools: Comparing Words: 1170
• Why Important Education System Words: 578
• School Desegregation in the United States Words: 1190
• School System: Poverty and Education Words: 598
• Nigerian Student’s Education in the United States Words: 1680
• How to Fix Sex Education in the United States Words: 1369
• Major Courts of the United States Words: 1303
• Inequality Issues in K-12 Public Education System Words: 575
• Prison System in the United States Words: 1044
• United States Withdrawal From Iraq Words: 1974
• Governance System of United Kingdom and United States of America Words: 564
• Global and Cosmopolitan Education System Words: 2002
• The United States Healthcare System Words: 1408
• The United States Legal System and Constitution Words: 2620
• Should Education Be Free For Everyone? Words: 863
• Student Activism in the United States Words: 1884

Education System in the United States

​introduction.

Ideally, education should continually prepare an individual for life so that they may live it to the fullest while aiming at an experience of the greater good for all and sundry. Nurturing of the human capacity for creativity requires a fertile environment for growth. Thus, education can be acquired from home, where the educative process is informal. It can also be appropriated from an institutionalized setting in the form of a public school or a privately owned school. In the United States, each of these environments is well represented as a source of education. The extent to which each of them has been instrumental in the drive for the greater good has, however, not yet been established.

Also, it would be an interesting engagement to try and determine how much each of the three entities have contributed towards this goal in the American context. This article shall explore education in the United States based on the aforementioned sources of enlightenment. According to the National Catholic Educational Association, no database extant in the American continent provides data regarding public schools. Furthermore, no database collects the same; also, no database compares findings concerning private and public schools (NCEA, 2010). This treatise shall attempt to make such comparisons. Findings of privately run schools and home-based learning centers shall be considered in mutual exclusivity, and comparisons made of the same regarding various parameters of interest. The author shall then endeavor to draw logical conclusions from the comparisons thus made.

​General Structure of the Education System in the United States

In the United States, education can be seen from two perspectives. There is a level at which education is considered not to be compulsory, and there is compulsory education. The non-compulsory level of education is below kindergarten. Different states have different ages at which children may enter compulsory education. This is usually six years of age. However, the range is usually between five and seven years (USAEducation, 2011). This level of education is also known as pre-higher education, and it lasts for ten years on average. For example, a child who joins compulsory education classes at the age of six years shall be expected to graduate at the age of sixteen, approximately ten years later. Within this level, one starts with pre-schooling, which commences from age three to six. The types of schools that provide pre-primary education include nursery schools, kindergarten, and daycare centers. A child in kindergarten spends two years in school (EuroEducation, 2011). In some cases, certificates are awarded as proof that a child indeed attended pre-primary classes. These certificates make the children eligible for admission into Elementary school.

Elementary school lasts four years, and the age of entry is usually six years, immediately after completion of Kindergarten. There are four grades at this level, but that also depends on the state and local practice. At ten years of age, one is likely to graduate with a certificate or a diploma that is awarded by the State or District. The student is then eligible to join Middle School. Sometimes, however, the issuance of awards may not be necessary (EuroEducation, 2011). For example, when a student is to maintain their residency within the same school, there will be no need for proof of graduation to the next level since the student is already known.

From ten to fourteen years of age, a student attends Middle School. This is from grade four to grade six but in some cases, it may go up to grade seven, or grade eight. On average the level takes three years to be completed. High school is from grade seven (or eight) to twelve and lasts six years; from thirteen to eighteen years of age. Some schools offer a level known as the Junior Secondary, which typically runs from thirteen to fifteen years of age and lasts an average of three years. The representative grades in this level are grade seven to eight, seven to nine, or eight to nine. It is a level followed immediately by the Upper secondary. The latter takes five years, is composed of grades nine or ten to twelve, and involves children who are between fifteen and eighteen years of age. Twelfth grade is the level for graduation from secondary school in all states. When one graduate, they are awarded a High School Diploma together with a transcript which details the marks that the student obtained and the curriculum in which he or she was involved (USAEducation, 2011).

Beyond secondary school education, there are two branches of education that one may opt for. They may get vocational education and training. This does not culminate in one being awarded a degree, but under certain circumstances, there may be transferable credits that lead to the award of a degree. On the other hand, a high school graduate can opt for the pursuance of a degree in any field that interests him or her (USAEducation, 2011). Higher education, also called post-secondary education can last an entire lifetime. It might also last for only three years after which the student decides to seek employment either in a field relevant to the acquired knowledge or an entirely different field. The transmutability of knowledge gained from higher education places the scholar at an advantage in that they are not confined to their area of expertise. The open-minded graduate will find gainful employment in whichever field they opt for. The essence of education is not to end up having a job, but to live life fully. Therefore, one who gets a job after they have acquired their degrees is fortunate

​Subjects Taught at Various School Levels

Much of what children are introduced to while they are in Kindergarten is repeated through the course of their elementary school life. Numbers, language, and social science are taught using computers, film, and books. These lists are, however, not exhaustive. Teachers have the responsibility of shaping the way children will think at this level and what the children learn shall be important determinants of whether or not the students shall be successful in the future. The teacher encourages them to play so that they may develop language and social skills. At Elementary School, one or two teachers are usually held responsible for a group of children whom they instruct in one of several special subjects. These subjects include science, music, and art (United States Bureau of Labour, 2002).

​The private education system in the United States

Behind every decision for one to embrace either the public school system or private school system, there is a motive. The rationale behind American people opting for private education is multi-faceted. However, there seems to be one underlying reason (opines the author) that traverses all others and that is, a collectively disgruntled group of people who have lost faith in the education that the public sector provides. What are some of the reasons for opting to go private? If the 2004 publication on private schooling is anything to go by, private schools are a reserve of the financially capable. The same publication gives the impression that the majority of rich people prefer having their children attend private schools that have no religious affiliations (Education Week, 2004). It would also so appear as if this group of people detests the idea of their progeny being indoctrinated with religious dogma; that not being relevant to their realization of the good life. Moreover, it depicts the definition of “the good life” as something subjective, arguable depending on personal perspectives of what comprises the good in life. If the observations on religious dogma were true, then a paltry 10% of the school-age population would still be an overestimation of the proportion of people who do not view success in life as a function of one’s religiousness or lack thereof.

According to the Council of American Private Education, one of the reasons the American populace opts for private educational institutions is the provision of quality education that they appropriate (CAPE, 2011). The implication of this is that, for the parents of school-going children who attend private school, the delivery of quality is better experienced away from public institutions. Other reasons cited for preferring private to public schools are supportive communities, safety and orderliness in private environments, and the impartation of morals and ethical values. When each of these factors is taken in isolation and regarded as a polarizing factor, it does not appear to hold much water, if any at all. About the quality of education, for example, it would be expected that public schools would offer better quality. This is because the federal government has the backing of the whole American population, albeit begrudgingly for some, in form of income tax returns. Therefore, the acquisition of quality personnel and educative amenities would/should not be an unbearable burden.

The National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES) defines a private school as one that does not obtain its financial support primarily from public funds. Besides, such schools use classrooms to deliver educative material from kindergarten up to grade 12. Other levels that compare to K-12 but as yet ungraded are also considered, for example, some Montessori schools assign institutions to “primary” or “intermediate” levels rather than giving specific grades. The said schools should also employ one teacher or more, for them to snugly fit within this criterion. The NCES does not consider a private school an institution or organization that does not use a classroom set-up to deliver instruction. It has been running the private school survey since 1997, with data derived from administrative personnel in the same institutions (NCES, 2011).

According to NCESs 2009-2010 survey, some private schools had religious orientations and these formed the majority of private schools (Broughman, Swaim and Hryczaniuk, 2011). The religious leanings notwithstanding, an interesting fancy that comes to mind is a look at the reasons behind these proclivities. It would also be of sensual appeal to study the various religious interests represented in the various school, to find out which is the most represented and why.

From the same survey mentioned above, it was evident that the majority of private schools around the United States had no religious affiliations at all. That is, not one religion had several schools that exceeded that of schools devoid of religious inclinations. These “unspiritual” (read non-sectarian) schools were closely followed in number by private schools that are predominantly Roman Catholic (Broughman, Swaim, and Hryczaniuk, 2011). According to the National Catholic Educational Association, when a single year is considered, examining test scores to determine student achievement, and to compare the quality of education between public and private schools avails very little relevant information (NCEA, 2006). This statement has been construed to engender the lack of comparison of other relevant data within any single academic or survey year.

For example, based on the 2009-2010 NCEA report, one may easily compare the enrolment of students in Roman Catholic schools and those in the Baptist church, thereby concluding that the higher the number of schools, the higher the number of students who enroll in them. This conclusion, however, is flawed, especially when one goes a step further and makes the same comparisons with, say, Jewish schools. The conclusion would imply direct proportionality between the number of schools and the number of enrollees. Nevertheless, the Jewish schools number less than half of the Baptist schools, but students enrolled in Jewish schools are more than half the number of those in Baptist schools. Similarly, it would be expected that since the number of Greek orthodox schools are exactly half the number of schools of the Church of God in Christ, the enrollees in the latter institution would be, ideally, half the number in the former give or take a few thousand students. A stark contrast is observed in this case, when the number of Greek orthodox enrolees exceeds the number of enrollees in schools considered to be affiliated with the Church of God in Christ (Broughman, Swaim and Hryczaniuk, 2011). With such discrepancies, it is highly unlikely that comparisons within different years would avail anything different.

From the survey carried out by the NCEA, several questions are likely to arise in the curious-minded. One would ask, for instance, how religious affiliations affect examination scores or how the religiously inclined to turn out in life after attending school. Furthermore, one would be interested in knowing the drop-out rate per grade of the religiously inclined vis a vis the non-sectarian. This, followed by an exploration of the reasons why would be a worthwhile engagement leading to a keener understanding of the school demographics. It would also enlighten one who needs to make decisions regarding which school his or her children ought to attend. However, the report provided addresses none of these concerns. Where one would probably get the answers to these questions, the data is not as detailed as to be of much relevance. A document by the Council for American Private Education, in mentioning the scores by students doing science, states that in 2009, 44% of the students in private schools “scored at or above the ‘proficient level’ in science”. The same publication further states that, for students in the fourth grade, 48% were deemed proficient according to NAEP (CAPE, 2011). It is thus evident that one might need to investigate to arrive at the answers to the queries above.

Apart from the meager statistical information from the well-established institutions like NAEP and the NCEA, several studies have been carried out whose objectives are congruous with the raised questions. Some studies have concluded that students from private schools perform better than their public school counterparts. However, other studies find conflicting results. Those whose results are in the affirmative invariably find out also that the best performers are students from catholic schools (Figlio & Stone, 2011).

According to Figlio and Stone, these studies did not employ robust instruments for the adjustment of non-random selection. They, therefore, proposed the implementation of a system of study that would improve system power prediction by about three times compared to studies done before theirs. They, like the aforementioned National Catholic Educational Association, did their studies while considering high schools in three categories: religious private high schools, nonreligious private high schools, and public high schools. Having made these modifications, they found out that nonreligious schools have a significant superiority to the religious schools in as far as science and mathematics subjects are concerned (Figlio and Stone, 2011).

There exists a debate about the benefits (if any at all) that private schools bring to the American schooling system. Those who criticize the private schools say that parents decide to opt for them being driven by the desire to appear socially elite or simply to separate themselves. It is the collective points of view of these critics that parents do not necessarily choose private schools because of better academic performance. They contend that these parents are hell-bent on keeping their children separate and untainted from those who come from other races and backgrounds. Furthermore, they say that for these parents, their children’s attending private schools is an attractive status symbol. The critical punch line they put forward is that private schools propagate segregation by class and race (Education Week, 2004).

On the other hand, there exist proponents for private education. In support of the system, they say that the monopoly extant with many public schools is not competitive. They add that a competitive system that opens up the opportunity for people to choose the schools to which they shall take their children is required. To support this point, they say that private school students are superior academies to their public school counterparts. They contend that schools need to be autonomous, and such a system would promote this autonomy; also adding that due to autonomy, student performance would improve. The proponents say that there is bias in the private school system. They propose an opening up of the system by the introduction of children from low-income families and those whose affiliate groups are underrepresented. This would mean that a means of supporting these students’ education be established. They, therefore, propose the use of vouchers as well as school choice programs (Education Week, 2004).

The proposal regarding the use of vouchers and increased school choice was given a counter-offer by the group called Americans United. On their website, they gave several reasons why people ought not to support this emerging trend. Among the reasons was the fact that the First Amendment gave a guarantee of freedom of religion from state influences. That is, they invoke the unending debate of the separation of church and state. They contended that this law would be broken when Americans agreed to support the issuance of vouchers for schooling. Citing the fact that a majority of private schools have religious affiliations and that these institutions have the mandate to indoctrinate the students and to educate them as well, the Americans United felt that Americans would be inadvertently supporting religion against their free wills. Americans would be paying for their children to be indoctrinated with religious dogma with which they did not agree (Americans United, 2011).

Ostensibly, the issuance of the voucher would be a tad more acceptable if it appreciably led to an improvement in the academic performance of students in their academics. That not being the case, however, the Americans United group is vehemently opposed to the idea. They contended that students in public schools performed much better in mathematics and reading than students in private schools. Furthermore, they would have expected the program to cause several changes in the students who participated in it. For example, participants were expected to have positive aspirations concerning their schooling in the future and to improve in the frequency with which they did their homework. However, the program never did bring such changes. On the contrary, student participants’ likelihood of absenteeism from class increased significantly (Americans United, 2011).

The report by the NCES never detailed graduation statistics for the year 2009-2010. Instead, it had data for the previous year. Whereas the reason for missing this data remains unknown, the NCES reported that of the twelfth graders who were enrolled in October 2008, ninety-eight percent graduated in 2009 (NCES, 2011). That was a very high success rate for graduates in private schools, which would have been taken as indicative of the quality of education that private institutions have to offer. Furthermore, 64% of the high school graduates from private schools later enrolled in 4-year colleges. This was representative of 308,813 high school graduates, who enrolled by the fall of the same year as they did graduate (NCES, 2011).

Using multiple sources of data, Heckman and LaFontaine made estimations of trends of graduation rates in the United States high schools. They noted that previous calculations were rife with biases and corrections had to be made for their study to be acceptable. Eventually, they found out that the rates provided by the National Centre for Educational Statistics were substantially high and thus misleading. They also found out that for forty-odd years, there had been a decline in the rate of graduation. Furthermore, they observed that even though the number of immigrants and minorities was on the increase in American society, this was not the cause of declining high school graduation rates among native populations. Therefore, they were able to explain why college attendance was also on the decline. Findings concerning gender differences in graduation from high schools were also useful in deciphering the reasons behind the gaps extant in male-female college attendance, and why those gaps were gradually increasing (Heckman and LaFontaine, 2011). These findings were not specifically for high school graduates from private high schools, but a traversal of all high schools regardless of their administrative leanings. In an appeal to the part being a representative of the whole, one would comfortably suggest that these findings could be transmuted to the private school population with similar implications.

The sizes of private schools might affect the effective transmission of knowledge and its receptivity among students. Here, the paper explores what other people have said regarding this, and the recommendations that they put forth towards improving the education system in the United States. Taken from an economic perspective, larger school sizes are better than smaller ones because of economies of scale benefits realized in the former. According to Ferris and Leung though, this is a consensus that requires revision because the benefits accrued from one side are outweighed by the disadvantages from other fronts. They cite the fact that more and more students are growing frustrated by the system, and coupled with the escalation of violence in the same schools, the drop-out rates are also on the rise (Leung and Ferris, 2008).

Since class sizes in most private schools are small, the student to teacher ratio critical for individual attention is easily achieved. This ratio stands at 15:1, but smaller ratios are more advantageous both to the teachers and students alike. With smaller ratios, teachers have fewer students to deal with and can divide their time well among the few students demanding their attention. Each student benefits by having more time spent with the teacher. Therefore, each student in a private school classroom has the opportunity to be personally aided by the teacher when the need calls for it (Kennedy, 2011).

​A Summary of Some of the Benefits of Private School System

According to the United States Department of education, when private school students and their public school counterparts are compared, the former generally outperform the latter on standardized achievement tests. Also, for the former to graduate, they pass through requirements that are more demanding than for their counterparts. Completion of advanced-level courses is more likely for private school graduates than for their public school counterparts when they take three academic subject areas. National Assessment of Educational Progress results showed that private student scores were above average nationally. Experts recommend students to take up challenging subjects that push them into striving for excellence. Private schools make provisions for this by making it a requirement for students to take difficult courses like calculus before they graduate. When it was assessed who between the two was more likely to attain a bachelor’s degree by their mid-twenties, those who had gone to private schools in their eighth grade scored 52% compared to 26% for the public school attendees (CAPE, 2011b).

Depending on a school’s financial resources, compensation for private school teachers might be higher than that for public school teachers. On the whole, however, they are usually comparably lower. The teachers usually benefit from getting free housing and meals as opposed to the public school teachers who do not get such benefits. Also, teachers in private schools have widely variable pension schemes. They are required by private schools to be credentialed. That is, a teacher has to have a teaching certificate backed with a degree in the relevant subject. Armed with these two documents, a teacher stands a greater chance of being hired than one who does not have them. However, concerning budgetary costs, public schools stand a better chance of raising significantly large amounts of money. They do so by making annual appeals, cultivating alumni, and soliciting grants from corporations. Private schools nurture strong bonds with their alumni. Therefore, they also have high rates of fund-raising success. They also have a management structure that is considered to be lean. This means that a critical decision does not have to pass through several authorities to get approval. Rarely, if ever, will a private school have to contend with a union of teachers (Kennedy, 2011).

​Some observed discrepancies to the generalizations regarding private school superiority

Rothstein, Carnoy, and Benveniste filed a report regarding the accountability of private schools to students’ parents, the outcomes parents expected of their children, and policies for retention and selection of teachers. They found out that in elementary school accountability to students’ parents does not differ significantly from the same in public schools. There was also no clearly defined school outcome expectation in private schools, and that was in no way different from the situation in public schools. Neither type of school did mentor teachers nor evaluate them formally to assess variation in their performance and delivery of instruction. They also found that where there was a competition between private and public schools, innovations by private schools never made their competitor public schools improve in any way whatsoever. Therefore, they made a point to the proponents for choice in public education, that to improve academic achievement, choice of public versus private institutions held very little weight (Benveniste, Carnoy and Rothste, 1999).

Private schooling also has its disadvantages. Some things are not implicitly taught in private schools. For example, a graduate from a private school would find it difficult to strike a conversation with any other person, who is essentially different from them. Unless it was a fellow graduate who came from the same institution, or a school with a similar status, building meaningful rapport would not be easy. Indoctrination also occurs in private schools albeit of a different kind than the commonplace religious dogma inculcation. That indoctrination goes a long way to assure students of private schools that they are better than those who never succeeded in attending similar schools.

The latter is seen as inferior people who are not even worth spending time with. The effect of this influence upon the indoctrinated was made evident in the Democratic presidential nominee, Al Gore, who could not speak to the populace. Thus, such students remain ignorant of some facts like there being other smart people apart from those who attend similar schools to theirs. They remain unaware that some highly adept people never see the inside of classrooms. Also, they realize rather belatedly that some of the so-called smart people are not smart at all. School is lacking in the instruction on social intelligence, the ability to be creative, and it does not teach emotional intelligence (Deresiewicz, 2008). Deresiewicz does not, however, give the way through which one may be educated in these latter aspects, pertinent through the acquisition of this knowledge might be.

The private school system achieves the creation of analytically biased minds, thereby developing lopsided intelligence that may not be entirely beneficial in seeing and appreciating the value inherent in other people. Such people are more adept at dealing with machines or analyzing books than interacting with other members of the human race. The system of private schooling essentially alienates one from that which is human in the sense that it creates a block to interpersonal interactions that are every bit human. Besides, a person develops a misguided sense of how worthy they are to receive certain rights and privileges. The unbearable truth in all of this is the fact that all through the life of a student who has been in private school, they have been graded using numerical rankings. Such students end up equating their grades to their identity and value. Absolute excellence, they forget, does not imply academic excellence or vice versa (Deresiewicz, 2008).

Whether it is a private school or a public school, one would contend that both have a common disadvantage. This is about the type of interaction a school-going child is exposed to. They can only interact with their age-mates while in school. Bigger children invariably bully the smaller ones, who in turn do the same to yet smaller ones. Among these children, none appreciates how to interact with grownups. The fear that is inculcated into them by the bullies they meet in school becomes the same fear that they show towards their parents back at home. Fear is a monster that feeds upon itself, however. Therefore, the fear engenders a reciprocal propensity for abuse from parents who do not know better. It is not a seldom occurrence to find children who’ve been abused by otherwise well-meaning parents.

The vicious cycle started with their being taken to school, which alienated them from their parents. They then picked up bits and pieces of strange behavior from their peers, which they came home with, much to the chagrin of their unprepared parents. Thus, there is a growing concern that home-schooling would be the only best option for a growing child (Oeser, 2011). Furthermore, time taken out to quietly reflect on one’s own is an alien concept to school-going students, who are more inclined to be rowdy, loud, and disorderly. Also, since they learn to pass their examinations, school-goers eventually lack long-standing applicable knowledge. Most of what they learn is quickly forgotten with the passing of the examination. Their understanding of concepts is not adequate as the knowledge they have does not correlate well with real-life issues.

​American Education in Public Schools: A Brief History

A majority of people in the United States who come from low-income backgrounds take their children to public schools. Currently, the parents whose children attend private schools are rather similar in characteristics. For one, they are from affluent backgrounds. The fact that school fees charges in private schools are high shields this elitist group of people from other influences. However, if the restrictive costs of financing education in private schools were to be revised downwards, up to 59% of parents would opt for private education. This would be aided by vouchers which would, ideally, be catering for the whole tuition fees. Besides, parents with low income show greater enthusiasm for private school enrolment, but money continues to be their major hurdle. It is opined that there would be a greater diversity of parents and the group would inevitably be larger if the price of private education were reduced (Education Week, 2004).

For some people, the public education system is the ideal system of instruction. However, it faces a lot of criticism, and many times it has had to be revised so that it may continue playing a pivotal role in the shaping of public opinion regarding solidarity with the government. Having developed in the nineteenth century, its inception was the result of a suggestion by the then President Jefferson. Public school education is under the management of states and school districts. Whereas education in the United States began with puritans and Congregationalists, a purely Christian group of people, the introduction of the public school system came much later. With the coming of people from different countries, there was a foreign influence upon the natives. The entrant people did not all embrace the Christian faith, they have been of different inclinations. For this reason, private education began and thrived in the mid-eighteenth century (Thattai, 2011).

​Disadvantages of Public Schools

In public schools, teachers generally get better remuneration. However, starter salaries are usually very low. This leads to very few teachers being retained in the public sector. Too much bureaucracy in the public sector implies that decisions take very long to be made even when those decisions are critical. Public schools are usually bogged down with political influences and union contracts. The rules that they adhere to while at work are also antique (Kennedy, 2011). Some courses are considered to be more challenging than others. It is less likely for a student in a public school to be required to take such courses as calculus before they graduate (CAPE, 2011b). This has the effect of developing an individual who shall not strive to excel in real life. It also relegates such an individual to a life of relative ease or one that is not well equipped to face challenges. Such an individual ends up having difficulties solving personal problems. Suicidal tendencies and drug-related escape mechanisms are rife among these people who will under most circumstances seek the easiest way out of any rut. The ways that appear easy, however, are illusions and present the individuals with a false sense of comfort or repose from the hardships they experience.

​Of Co-Educational Schools versus Single-Sex Schools

Both private and public schools can be regarded as single-sex institutions or co-educational. In the latter case, a school trains students of both sexes, while in the former the school is exclusively for girls or boys. A debate continues regarding whether the genders should be separated in the school set-up. Those who oppose the idea are the conservative types who feel that there is the looseness of morals that comes into play when members of the two genders are nearby for extended periods. For the feminists, a separation of the sexes is the ideal environment for women to achieve success in life. Historically, it has been normal to separate girls and boys, giving them unequal status to each other based on their acquired societal roles in later life. Literacy was, therefore, more prevalent among males than among females. The former was trained in subjects that would be relevant in their workplaces, politics, and war. Girls, on the other hand, were trained on how to be better performers in the home arena. Thus, the inception of co-education was a threat to the widely accepted status quo, where men were regarded in higher esteem than women (Rury, 2008).

​Controversies in the Adoption of Coeducation

In 2006, Title IX regulations of the US department of education were amended. This allowed single-sex school enrolment, but with reservations. It contended that the enrolments ought o be voluntary. Also, an equal school for the opposite gender should have been present or catered for. While endeavoring to convert to single-sex institutions, some schools have been met with challenges like meager finances and political pressures. Enrolment in such schools has also been a problem for some of the administrators (Rury, 2008).

It would have been thrift for the United States to have learned a thing or two from her European contemporaries. Europe’s experience with coeducation has been anything but rosy. They have documented disadvantages that they have observed against female students in such schools. They state that contrary to their expectation that coeducation would bring about a keen appreciation of either gender by the other, the opposite remains true. Girls have invariably been the sufferers while boys (and teachers) have been the perpetrators of a myriad of atrocities. In a literal sense, girls lack adequate space in these schools. They are the objects of boys’ desires, and often battered with lewd suggestive remarks. Male teachers also tend to get romantically attached to girl students. Girls do not get as much appropriate attention from teachers as the boys do, and they are also taken as social workers to be strategically seated next to ill-mannered boys. This is done to cause the boys to learn some good manners from the better-behaved girls. The missing point in all this is that the bad behavior of the boys seated next to the girls might (and does) rub off on the girls, whose behavior will then be all the worse (Anon., 2004).

In coeducational institutions, inequity exists in the meting out of punishments for wrongdoing. Girls get punished more severely than boys even when their misdeeds are essential of similar magnitude. It is understood, in a discriminatory manner, that girls are more diligent than boys, but that boys are more intelligent than girls. Therefore, when a girl performs well in class, it is attributed to her diligence, while if a boy does the same, it is said that he passed or excelled because he is intelligent. Boys are encouraged to be competitive while girls are frowned upon if they act similarly. The latter is expected to conform. They are also given less time for verbal expression than boys are given in class (Anon., 2004).

Other issues that have arisen through the years after the introduction of coeducational institutions include the argument by some doctors that women would suffer from overexertion and get harmed. It was argued that the overexertion would come from the girls’ competition with boys. Indulgence in sexual impropriety was also pointed out as being highly likely when the two sexes were left to interact for extended periods (Rury, 2008).

Outcomes of education that are of most interests to parents and students include academic achievement test scores, an appropriately delineated concept of self, and long-term success indicators. These are more evident in single-sex schools than in coeducational schools, and they give leverage for the proponents for single-sex schools. In comparison, single-sex schools perform academically better than coeducational schools.

​Current Trends of Education in the United States

In the late twentieth century, there arose a drive for the reformation of elementary education in the United States. Its purpose was to indiscriminately improve the academic performance of students. Children were left accountable to the schools, districts, and ultimately the states for their academic achievement. However, concerns have been raised that the United States students perform relatively poorly in their academics compared to students of other countries. They blame this on an educational system that they deem not to be enabling the students to perform as it should be. Elementary education in the United States is constantly being reformed and refined. The United States is democratizing its education so that it does not support systems that are representations of goals and expectations, and are industrial or social. It is drawn toward an education system that is open and universal (Howey and Post, 2011).

When students perform poorly, the education system is seen as being a failure. It thus behooves the government to ensure that a running system strikes the right balance. One that places a lot of demands on the students is sure to cause them to perform poorly. A very lax system, on the other hand, will produce individuals who are ill-equipped for their roles in society. Thus, the government has put in place measures to ensure that all children have equal access to quality education. These measures include the creation of a welcoming environment, which embodies the prevention of bullying and harassment, and the outlining of the responsibilities that education providers have towards this goal. The onus rests on education providers to ensure that harassment does not occur. Such harassment might be from the education providers themselves, or other sources. Education providers should take the measures necessary to remedy harassment when they know that students are being harassed. Otherwise, they (education providers) face imminent sanctions, since their laxity (or presumed indifference) allows the education system to be poisoned. Harassment is seen as one of the impediments to the ease of access to educational services. When one is harassed, they may not “participate fully in the educational experience” (OHRC, 2011).

An education provider helps reduce instances of bullying and harassment by being non-tolerant to the act of bullying and being unequivocal about the consequences a student has to face for being a bully. The educator further communicates this by educating students concerning disabilities; he or she then encourages them to appreciate diversity. Appreciating diversity will imply that the students do not taunt their peers who may be disabled in one way or another. They will respect their disabled peers, and even protect them from further harm if necessary. The education provider may also get involved in role-playing to cultivate compassion and awareness of the impact that bullying has on other people. They may act like the ones upon whose taunts are being thrown or being big, act as the bullies. In either case, the students will see the folly behind bullying as a front. Bullies are essentially weak people who hide their weaknesses by attacking others. Finally, the educator protects students who report bullying by maintaining confidence regarding their report (OHRC, 2011). The educator does not let other students know the one who reports instances of bullying to the authorities.

​The Role of Universities in the United States Education System

There was a decline in American education as was documented in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. This brought about a change that saw the inception of standardized testing and accountability (Heckman & LaFontaine, 2011). A 2001 Act called the No Child Left Behind Act sets out requirements for each state to identify low-performing schools. Another of its requirements is for the annual assessment of students in reading and mathematics. Declining standards in the secondary school level of education imply that very few students get enrolled in universities around the country. America boasts of the largest number of institutions of higher learning throughout the world, but if these institutions cannot enroll Native Americans due to mediocre performance in their secondary schools, one is left to marvel at what the future holds for university education within the country.

Scientific research in universities thrives on funding from various sources. Research is important to the advancement of knowledge since it creates new perspectives to what is already known. Much of what results from research can be applied in areas such as pharmaceuticals for the production of new drugs. The current trend tends towards genetic science, which has brought about a lot of controversies. When universities lack students to carry out research then there is a paucity of funds from donors who fund the research projects. This brings a complication to the universities, which rely much on donor funding. The case of Berkeley and Novartis appears to have been instigated by such a state of affairs as has been described above. Berkeley signed an agreement with Novartis in November 1998 and rescinded about one-third of its patent rights to Novartis in exchange for a $25 million grant towards research (Washburn, 2005). The said company had vested interests in the outcome of the research and, thus, was in a way investing in it. That movie had a lot of ethical connotations.

Another issue that was highlighted in Washburn’s book is the notion that universities have gradually been shifting from their academic role to institutions that run businesses. This is a pithy subject since the university ought to be an institution of higher learning and not drawn into the rigmarole of generating income. Universities ought to set the pace for industry to follow, by making breakthroughs in research projects that will enhance the human experience of living within the planet earth. That notwithstanding, universities have become embroiled in the shaping of individuals to prepare them for employment within the industries. One may contend that they are responding to the dire needs of the economy by providing the market with the best brains the country has to offer. However, the country appears to stand no gain, especially when such patents as were aforementioned are left in the hands of foreign companies (Washburn, 2005).

A reversal of roles is readily observable in that the industry now makes the demands and the universities dance to her tune. For example, when the industry demands chemical analysts, the universities respond by giving their analysts to the industries. Due to the lack of employment in the country, an analyst who finishes their course at university and immediately finds a source of income sees herself as being very fortunate. This, however, results in a dilution of the high standards of excellence that are expected of all public institutions of higher learning. Universities need to maintain an autonomous stance that is neither swayed by the government nor by the industry as these two entities seek to push their agenda (Washburn, 2005). On one side is an entity with political ideals while on the other is one that seeks financial gains. Both the government and the industrial entities stand in opposition to the universities’ values of serving the common good of all humankind.

The involvement of outside forces in university affairs has made even students forget their primary agenda at having joined the universities. Like Reynolds in the Washburn (2005) book, many a scientist ends up being a politician due to these disruptions in the curriculum. If even the students should get derailed from their “calling” in such a manner, in all probability, the future of the universities is painted in bleak colors. It is necessary to redefine the role of the university and give the students clear guidelines as to the parts they ought to play therein. Not only are grades falling within secondary schools, but also those who end up in university, having attempted and succeeded at a difficult feat, may get disillusioned at what they find.

Hirsch (2006) appears to have the answer to one of the woes so far when he says that students have to read and comprehend. Any student can read, given the time to do so. But their understanding of what they have read is the most crucial part of their acquisition of knowledge. Comprehension is the difficult bone that students need to chew while at school to enable them to sit their examinations and pass with flying colors. Since they are not taught to comprehend, it follows that their performance in class also suffers. They are not even prepared within their extant grades for the grades which they shall be facing in the future. Hirsch says that a broad range of knowledge is required for students to be able to comprehend what they read (Hirsch, 2006). One may question at this point from whence that a “broad range of knowledge” shall be obtained.

Hitherto, it has been observed the diverse challenges that the American child faces as he or she pursues an education. The challenges start right from kindergarten through to university. The American child is also exposed to a lot of information that buffets them from all types of sources: the internet, television, radio, movies et cetera. These sources of information together with the students’ own experiences (however few and apart those experiences might be) ought to be sufficient to give the background knowledge that Hirsch craves for them. If these sources are not enough to give the American child the vast knowledge that Hirsch talks about, then it remains an enigma where else the knowledge shall come from. The school has synthesized the knowledge for the students to acquire, not in its raw form, but in a form that has been more purified; akin to the sugar that one gets on the table compared to the sugar from the cane.

According to Hirsch (2006), knowledge is all around us, but it is taken for granted. In essence, he says that even the modern student has a lot to learn from his or her surroundings. As they walk along the streets, go sightseeing or listen to music on the radio, all these areas hold a bit of knowledge here and a bit there that may stand the observer in good stead when they are faced with the problem of comprehending written material in class. It may be added that comprehension is context-dependent but knowledge garnered from one source can be transmuted to an application that is far much different than its source. Therefore, as students learn to be more in touch with their environments, they shall be better equipped to face the future challenges that they are bound to meet. They shall be able, when in university, to stand for what they know is right, disallowing the interference of other institutions whose missions stand at variance with the mission of the academia.

​Conclusion

Reforms in education in the United States are bound to be a collective effort involving, not only the government but also all other stakeholders. America was founded as a nation on solid Christian principles, and these guiding principles worked well for the founding generation as well as the few generations that stood by them thereafter. The encumbrances that America faces are as a result of her generosity toward all nations. These nations have brought with them influences that have diluted the American spirit of democracy and freedom; for even the freedom that the founding father fought for has been misinterpreted. It is time that America went back to her first principles; for there lays the answer to most of the problems she faces nowadays. Democracy per se is a boon that the American people can never take for granted. Nevertheless, it only speaks of good things that have not been counterbalanced by the “bad”. A bit of non-democratization may be required to create the critical balance that America requires. The government needs to step up its authority to ensure that things happen in the correct way that they should, but that ought to be done with discretion as there still is an extant law that governs the land. It is a law that the people have put forth by themselves, and it is in the power of the people to repeal the same and come up with better laws.

The breaches in the education system in America are not irreparable. Since the United States has shined in glory in the past, she still can do the same but only if the people are willing to rise together and make that dream a reality. Right from elementary school to the university level, students have the latent ability to excel, for America does have the mental capacity to read and understand books. She is well endowed with comprehensive skills.

Reference List

Americans United. (2011). 10 Reasons Why Private School Vouchers Should Be Rejected . Web.

Anon. (2004). The Damages of Co-Education . Web.

Benveniste, L., Carnoy, M., and Rothste, R. (1999). Can Public Schools Learn From Private Schools? Colorado: EPI and The Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research Fund.

Broughman, S. P., Swaim, N. L. and Hryczaniuk, C. A. (2011). Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results From the 2009-10 Private School Universe Survey.  

CAPE. (2011b). Benefits of Private Education . Web.

CAPE. (2011). Council of American Private Education (CAPE) Home page . Web.

CAPE. (2011). Outlook. Maryland: Council of American Private Education.

Deresiewicz, W. (2008). The Disadvantages of an Elite Education.  

Education Week. (2004). Private Schooling .

Education Week. (2004). Research Centre . Web.

EuroEducation. (2011). Structure of education system in the USA . Web.

Figlio, D. N. and Stone, J. A. (2011). School Choice and Student Performance: Are Private Schools Better?

Heckman, J. J. and LaFontaine, P. A. (2011). The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels.  

Hirsch, E. D. (2006). The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Howey, K. R. and Post, L. M. (2011). Elementary education: current trends . Web.

Kennedy, R. (2011). Private vs Public Schools .

Leung, A. and Ferris, J. S. (2008). School Size and Youth Violence – revised version. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization , 318–333.

NCEA. (2010). Catholic School Data . Web.

NCEA. (2006, August 10). NAEP Comparisons . Web.

NCES. (2011). Private School Universe Survey (PSS) .

Oeser, M. (2011). Disadvantages of Public Schools . Web.

OHRC. (2011). Guidelines on accessible education . Web.

Rury, J. L. (2008). Coeducation and same sex schooling .

Thattai, D. (2011). A History of Public Education in the United States . Web.

United States Bureau of Labour. (2002). Occupational outlook handbook, Volume 2540. California: The Bureau.

USAEducation. (2011). Structure of US education system . Web.

Washburn, J. (2005). University, Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education. New York: Basic Books.

Cite this paper

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2021, February 3). Education System in the United States. https://studycorgi.com/education-system-in-the-united-states/

"Education System in the United States." StudyCorgi , 3 Feb. 2021, studycorgi.com/education-system-in-the-united-states/.

StudyCorgi . (2021) 'Education System in the United States'. 3 February.

1. StudyCorgi . "Education System in the United States." February 3, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/education-system-in-the-united-states/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "Education System in the United States." February 3, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/education-system-in-the-united-states/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "Education System in the United States." February 3, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/education-system-in-the-united-states/.

This paper, “Education System in the United States”, was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment.

Before publication, the StudyCorgi editorial team proofread and checked the paper to make sure it meets the highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, fact accuracy, copyright issues, and inclusive language. Last updated: October 21, 2022 .

If you are the author of this paper and no longer wish to have it published on StudyCorgi, request the removal . Please use the “ Donate your paper ” form to submit an essay.

• Create Account

Understanding the American Education System

The American education system offers a rich field of choices for international students. There is such an array of schools, programs and locations that the choices may overwhelm students, even those from the U.S. As you begin your school search, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the American education system. Understanding the system will help you narrow your choices and develop your education plan.

The Educational Structure

Primary and secondary school.

Prior to higher education, American students attend primary and secondary school for a combined total of 12 years. These years are referred to as the first through twelfth grades.

Around age six, U.S. children begin primary school, which is most commonly called “elementary school.” They attend five or six years and then go onto secondary school.

Secondary school consists of two programs: the first is “middle school” or “junior high school” and the second program is “high school.” A diploma or certificate is awarded upon graduation from high school. After graduating high school (12th grade), U.S. students may go on to college or university. College or university study is known as “higher education.”

Grading System

Just like American students, you will have to submit your academic transcripts as part of your application for admission to university or college. Academic transcripts are official copies of your academic work. In the U.S. this includes your “grades” and “grade point average” (GPA), which are measurements of your academic achievement. Courses are commonly graded using percentages, which are converted into letter grades.

The grading system and GPA in the U.S. can be confusing, especially for international students. The interpretation of grades has a lot of variation. For example, two students who attended different schools both submit their transcripts to the same university. They both have 3.5 GPAs, but one student attended an average high school, while the other attended a prestigious school that was academically challenging. The university might interpret their GPAs differently because the two schools have dramatically different standards.

Therefore, there are some crucial things to keep in mind:

• You should find out the U.S. equivalent of the last level of education you completed in your home country.
• Pay close attention to the admission requirements of each university and college, as well as individual degree programs, which may have different requirements than the university.
• Regularly meet with an educational advisor or guidance counselor to make sure you are meeting the requirements.

Your educational advisor or guidance counselor will be able to advise you on whether or not you must spend an extra year or two preparing for U.S. university admission. If an international student entered a U.S. university or college prior to being eligible to attend university in their own country, some countries’ governments and employers may not recognize the students’ U.S. education.

Academic Year

The school calendar usually begins in August or September and continues through May or June. The majority of new students begin in autumn, so it is a good idea for international students to also begin their U.S. university studies at this time. There is a lot of excitement at the beginning of the school year and students form many great friendships during this time, as they are all adjusting to a new phase of academic life. Additionally, many courses are designed for students to take them in sequence, starting in autumn and continuing through the year.

The academic year at many schools is composed of two terms called “semesters.” (Some schools use a three-term calendar known as the “trimester” system.) Still, others further divide the year into the quarter system of four terms, including an optional summer session. Basically, if you exclude the summer session, the academic year is either comprised of two semesters or three quarter terms.

The U.S. Higher Education System: Levels of Study

• First Level: Undergraduate

"The American system is much more open. In Hong Kong you just learn what the teacher writes on the board. In America, you discuss the issues and focus more on ideas."

Paolo Kwan from Hong Kong: Studying English and Business Administration at Sierra College in California

A student who is attending a college or university and has not earned a bachelor’s degree, is studying at the undergraduate level. It typically takes about four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. You can either begin your studies in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree at a community college or a four-year university or college.

Your first two years of study you will generally be required to take a wide variety of classes in different subjects, commonly known as prerequisite courses: literature, science, the social sciences, the arts, history, and so forth. This is so you achieve a general knowledge, a foundation, of a variety of subjects prior to focusing on a specific field of study.

Many students choose to study at a community college in order to complete the first two years of prerequisite courses. They will earn an Associate of Arts (AA) transfer degree and then transfer to a four-year university or college.

A “major” is the specific field of study in which your degree is focused. For example, if someone’s major is journalism, they will earn a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. You will be required to take a certain number of courses in this field in order to meet the degree requirements of your major. You must choose your major at the beginning of your third year of school.

A very unique characteristic of the American higher education system is that you can change your major multiple times if you choose. It is extremely common for American students to switch majors at some point in their undergraduate studies. Often, students discover a different field that they excel in or enjoy. The American education system is very flexible. Keep in mind though that switching majors may result in more courses, which means more time and money.

• Second Level: Graduate in Pursuit of a Master’s Degree

Presently, a college or university graduate with a bachelor’s degree may want to seriously think about graduate study in order to enter certain professions or advance their career. This degree is usually mandatory for higher-level positions in library science, engineering, behavioral health and education.

Furthermore, international students from some countries are only permitted to study abroad at a graduate level. You should inquire about the credentials needed to get a job in your country before you apply to a postgraduate university in the USA.

A graduate program is usually a division of a university or college. To gain admission, you will need to take the GRE (graduate record examination). Certain master’s programs require specific tests, such as the LSAT for law school, the GRE or GMAT for business school, and the MCAT for medical school.

Graduate programs in pursuit of a master’s degree typically take one to two years to complete. For example, the MBA (master of business administration) is an extremely popular degree program that takes about two years. Other master’s programs, such as journalism, only take one year.

The majority of a master’s program is spent in classroom study and a graduate student must prepare a long research paper called a “master’s thesis” or complete a “master’s project.”

• Third Level: Graduate in Pursuit of a Doctorate Degree

Many graduate schools consider the attainment of a master’s degree the first step towards earning a PhD (doctorate). But at other schools, students may prepare directly for a doctorate without also earning a master’s degree. It may take three years or more to earn a PhD degree. For international students, it may take as long as five or six years.

For the first two years of the program most doctoral candidates enroll in classes and seminars. At least another year is spent conducting firsthand research and writing a thesis or dissertation. This paper must contain views, designs, or research that have not been previously published.

A doctoral dissertation is a discussion and summary of the current scholarship on a given topic. Most U.S. universities awarding doctorates also require their candidates to have a reading knowledge of two foreign languages, to spend a required length of time “in residence,” to pass a qualifying examination that officially admits candidates to the PhD program, and to pass an oral examination on the same topic as the dissertation.

Characteristics of the U.S. Higher Education System

Classroom Environment

Classes range from large lectures with several hundred students to smaller classes and seminars (discussion classes) with only a few students. The American university classroom atmosphere is very dynamic. You will be expected to share your opinion, argue your point, participate in class discussions and give presentations. International students find this one of the most surprising aspects of the American education system.

Each week professors usually assign textbook and other readings. You will be expected to keep up-to-date with the required readings and homework so you can participate in class discussions and understand the lectures. Certain degree programs also require students to spend time in the laboratory.

Professors issue grades for each student enrolled in the course. Grades are usually based upon:

• Each professor will have a unique set of class participation requirements, but students are expected to participate in class discussions, especially in seminar classes. This is often a very important factor in determining a student’s grade.
• A midterm examination is usually given during class time.
• One or more research or term papers , or laboratory reports must be submitted for evaluation.
• Possible short exams or quizzes are given. Sometimes professors will give an unannounced “pop quiz.” This doesn’t count heavily toward the grade, but is intended to inspire students to keep up with their assignments and attendance.
• A final examination will be held after the final class meeting.

Each course is worth a certain number of credits or credit hours. This number is roughly the same as the number of hours a student spends in class for that course each week. A course is typically worth three to five credits.

A full-time program at most schools is 12 or 15 credit hours (four or five courses per term) and a certain number of credits must be fulfilled in order to graduate. International students are expected to enroll in a full-time program during each term.

If a student enrolls at a new university before finishing a degree, generally most credits earned at the first school can be used to complete a degree at the new university. This means a student can transfer to another university and still graduate within a reasonable time.

Types of U.S. higher education

Xujie Zhao from China: Studying Computer Networking at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston

1. State College or University

A state school is supported and run by a state or local government. Each of the 50 U.S. states operates at least one state university and possibly several state colleges. Many of these public universities schools have the name of the state, or the actual word “State” in their names: for example, Washington State University and the University of Michigan.

2. Private College or University

These schools are privately run as opposed to being run by a branch of the government. Tuition will usually be higher than state schools. Often, private U.S. universities and colleges are smaller in size than state schools.

Religiously affiliated universities and colleges are private schools. Nearly all these schools welcome students of all religions and beliefs. Yet, there are a percentage of schools that prefer to admit students who hold similar religious beliefs as those in which the school was founded.

3. Community College

Community colleges are two-year colleges that award an associate’s degrees (transferable), as well as certifications. There are many types of associate degrees, but the most important distinguishing factor is whether or not the degree is transferable. Usually, there will be two primary degree tracks: one for academic transfer and the other prepares students to enter the workforce straightaway. University transfer degrees are generally associate of arts or associate of science. Not likely to be transferrable are the associate of applied science degrees and certificates of completion.

Community college graduates most commonly transfer to four-year colleges or universities to complete their degree. Because they can transfer the credits they earned while attending community college, they can complete their bachelor’s degree program in two or more additional years. Many also offer ESL or intensive English language programs, which will prepare students for university-level courses.

If you do not plan to earn a higher degree than the associate’s, you should find out if an associate’s degree will qualify you for a job in your home country.

4. Institute of Technology

An institute of technology is a school that provides at least four years of study in science and technology. Some have graduate programs, while others offer short-term courses.

Study in the USA ®

Get matched to the best program for you.

Let us know what you're looking for so we can find the best school for you.

Useful Articles

Check Out These Schools

Chaffey College

$5,000—$10,000 Year

Berkeley Global

$15,000—$20,000 Semester

University of Mississippi

$10,000 — $15,000 Semester

Featured Programs

Glendale Community College

Typical cost per Year: $5,000—$10,000

Golden West College

Los Angeles City College

Typical cost per Semester: $1,000—$5,000

Related Stories

Start your U.S. adventure with Study in the USA

Learn About U.S. education financing, housing, and more

The Intern Group

Summer plans suspended because of COVID-19? The deadline's approaching for TheInternGroup's virtual/remote global internship program. Gain professional experience, grow your network and make your resume shine from wherever you are this summer.

Student Advantage

Explore the American Dream with the ‘My Deals’ app from Student Advantage - save on car rentals, hotel rooms, and everyday essentials!

Search for Education Loan Options today!

Nomad Credit helps international students search for and compare education loan (student loan) options, including options for students with a US cosigner or those pursuing a graduate degree. The Nomad team will personally help you with your education...

Learn about American culture and education direct from our experts at Study in the USA. Read more

Achieving Your Goal

Admissions and placement testing, beyond the basics, education system in the usa, financing your u.s. education, frequently asked questions, life in the usa, student experiences, for students age 10-18, study in canada, student voices, ask studyusa.com, subscribe to get the latest from study in the usa.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations

• Reference work entry
• First Online: 01 January 2022
• pp 1015–1042
• Cite this reference work entry

• Paul R. Fossum 3  

Part of the book series: Global Education Systems ((GES))

2143 Accesses

Prevailing discourse in the USA about the country’s teachers, educational institutions, and instructional approaches is a conversation that is national in character. Yet the structures and the administrative and governance apparatuses themselves are strikingly local in character across the USA. Public understanding and debate about education can be distorted in light of divergence between the country’s educational aspirations and the vehicles in place for pursuing those aims. In addressing its purpose as a survey of US education, the following chapter interrogates this apparent contradiction, first discussing historical and social factors that help account for a social construction of the USA as singular and national system. Discussion then moves to a descriptive analysis of education in the USA as institutionalized at the numerous levels – aspects that often reflect local prerogative and difference more so than a uniform national character. The chapter concludes with summary points regarding US federalism as embodied in the country’s oversight and conduct of formal education.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

The Education System of the United States of America

School Education Systems and Policies in South Asia

Barber, B. R. (1993). America skips school: Why we talk so much about education and do so little. Harper’s Magazine, 287 (1722), 39–46.

Google Scholar  

Beck, R. (1990). Vocational preparation and general education . Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education.

Berliner, D. C. (2011). The context for interpreting PISA results in the USA. In M. A. Pereyra, H.-G. Kotthoff, & R. Cowen (Eds.), PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, changing schools (pp. 77–96). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Berliner, D. C., & Biddle, B. (1995). The manufactured crisis: Myths, fraud, and the attack on America’s public schools . Reading: Addison-Wesley.

Brubacher, J. S., & Rudy, W. (1997). Higher education in transition: A history of American colleges and universities . Transaction Publishers. Piscataway, New Jersey [NJ], United States.

Carson, C. C., Huelskamp, R., & Woodall, T. (1993). Perspectives on education in America: An annotated briefing. Sandia report. Journal of Educational Research, 86 (5), 259–310.

Article   Google Scholar  

Center for Postsecondary Research. (2019). Carnegie classification of institutions of higher education . School of Education, Indiana University. http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/

Clauset, A., Arbesman, S., & Larremore, D. B. (2015). Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science Advances, 1 (1), 1–6.

Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, National Education Association. (1918). Cardinal principles of secondary education, Bureau of Education bulletin . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Cremin, L. A. (1957). The republic and the school: Horace Mann on the education of free men . New York: Teachers College Press.

Cremin, L. A. (1961). The transformation of the American school: Progressivism in American education, 1876–1957 . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Cremin, L. A. (1988). American education: The metropolitan experience, 1876–1980 . New York: Harper-Collins.

Crowley, S., & Green, E. L. (2019). A college chain crumbles, and millions in student loan cash disappears. New York Times , March 7. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/business/argosy-college-art-insititutes-south-university.html

Curti, M. (1943). The growth of American thought . New York: Harper and Brothers.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future . New York: Teachers College Press.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education . New York: The Free Press.

Diffey, L. (2018). 50-state comparison: State Kindergarten-through-third-grade policies . Denver: Education Commission of the States. https://www.ecs.org/kindergarten-policies/ . Last accessed 12 Mar 2019.

Finn, C. E., Julian, L., & Petrilli, M. J. (Eds.). (2006). The state of state standards 2006 . Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Fischer, K. (2019). It’s a New Assault on the University. Chronicle of Higher Education (February 17). https://www.chronicle.com/article/its-anew-assault-on-the-university/

Flaherty, C. (2017). Killing tenure. Inside Higher Ed (January 13). https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/13/legislation-two-statesseeks-eliminate-tenure-publichigher-education .

Friedman-Krauss, A. H., Steven Barnett, W., Garver, K. A., Hodges, K. S., Weisenfeld, G. G., & DiCrecchio, N. (2019). The state of preschool 2018: State preschool yearbook . New Brunswick: Rutgers University, National Institute for Early Education Research. http://nieer.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/YB2018_Full-ReportR3wAppendices.pdf . Last accessed 30 Apr 2019.

Fulton, M. (2019). 50-state comparison: State postsecondary governance structures . Denver: Education Commission of the States. https://www.ecs.org/50-state-comparison-postsecondary-governance-structures/ . Last accessed 15 Nov 2019.

Gerstle, G. (2015). Liberty and coercion: The paradox of American government from the founding to the present . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gutek, G. L. (2013). An historical introduction to American education (2nd ed.). Long Grove: Waveland.

Hartong, S. (2016). New structures of power and regulation within ‘distributed’ education policy: The example of the US Common Core State Standards Initiative. Journal of Education Policy, 31 (2), 213–225.

Hemelt, S. W., & Marcotte, D. E. (2016). The changing landscape of tuition and enrollment in American Public Higher Education. Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2 (1), 42–68.

Henig, J. R. (2013). The end of exceptionalism in American education: The changing politics of school reform . Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Herman, J., Post, S., & O’Halloran, S. (2013). The United States is far behind other countries on pre-K . Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Hyslop-Margison, E. J. (1999). An assessment of the historical arguments in vocational education reform. Journal of Career and Technical Education, 17 (1), 23–30.

Hu, W. (2008). New horizons in high school classrooms. New York Times , October 26. A-21.

Kaestle, C. F. (1983). Pillars of the republic: common schools and American Society, 1780–1860 . New York: Hill and Wang.

Kaestle, C. F. (1988). Public education in the old northwest: “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind”. Indiana Magazine of History, 84 (1), 60–74.

Katz, M. B. (1968). The irony of early school reform: Educational innovation in mid-nineteenth century Massachusetts . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools . New York: Crown Publishing.

Labaree, D. F. (2010). How Dewey lost: The victory of David Snedden and social efficiency in the reform of American education. In D. Trohler, T. Schlag, & F. Osterwalder (Eds.), Pragmatism and modernities (pp. 163–188). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

LaMorte, M. W. (2012). School law: Cases and concepts (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Lannie, V. P. (1968). Public money and parochial education: Bishop Hughes, Governor Seward, and the New York school controversy . Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press.

Lattuca, L. R., & Stark, J. S. (2011). External influences on curriculum: Sociocultural contact. In S. R. Harper & J. F. L. Jackson (Eds.), An introduction to American higher education (pp. 93–128). New York: Routledge.

Lazerson, M., & Norton Grubb, W. (1974). Introduction. In M. Lazerson & W. N. Grubb (Eds.), American education and vocationalism: A documentary history 1870–1970 (pp. 1–56). New York: Teachers College Press.

Lynch, M. (2018). 10 (more) reasons why the U.S. education system is failing. Education Week , January 26. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/01/29/10-more-reasons-why-the-us-education.html . Last accessed 18 June 2020.

Malkin, M. (2013). Lessons from Texas and the revolt against Common Core power grab. Noozhawk , March 3. https://www.noozhawk.com/article/030313_michelle_malkin_texas_common_core_education_standards . Last accessed June 18, 2020.

McLaren, P. (2015). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (6th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Messerli, J. (1971). Horace Mann: A biography . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Miller, C. C. (2017). Do Preschool Teachers Really Need to Be College Graduates? (April 7). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/upshot/dopreschool-teachers-really-need-to-be-college-graduates.html .

National Center for Education Statistics. (2017a). Table 202.20, Percentage of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children enrolled in preprimary programs, by level of program, attendance status, and selected child and family characteristics: 2017. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_202.20.asp . Last accessed 15 Jan 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2017b). Table 205.10, Private elementary and secondary school enrollment and private enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment in public and private schools, by region and grade level: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2015. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_205.10.asp . Last accessed 29 Jan 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2017c). Table 214.10, Number of public school districts and public and private elementary and secondary schools: Selected years, 1869–70 through 2015–16. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_214.10.asp . Last accessed 21 Jan 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2018a). NCES Blog: National spending for public schools increases for third consecutive year in school year, 2015–16. https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/national-spending-for-public-schools-increases-for-third-consecutive-year-in-school-year-2015-16 . Last accessed 7 Jan 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2018b). National postsecondary student aid study: Student financial aid estimates for 2015–16. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018466.pdf . Last accessed 7 Nov 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2018c). Number of educational institutions, by level and control of institution: Selected years, 1980–81 through 2016–17. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_105.50.asp . Last accessed 7 Nov 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2019a). Characteristics of postsecondary faculty. The condition of education: letter from the commissioner. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csc.asp . Last accessed 20 June 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2019b). The condition of education: Preschool and Kindergarten enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cfa.asp . Last accessed 21 Jan 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2019c). The condition of education: Public charter school enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb.asp . Last accessed 20 June 2019.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2019d). Digest of Education Statistics, 2017 (NCES 2018-070), Chapter 3. U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/ch_3.asp . Last accessed 20 Nov 2019.

Newman, A. (2013). Common core: A scheme to rewrite education. New American , August 8. Retrieved 20 Sept 2019, from https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/16192-common-core-a-scheme-to-rewrite-education . Last accessed 20 Sept 2019.

Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle class . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality . New Haven: Yale University Press.

Office of Postsecondary Education. (2017). Institutional eligibility. In 2017–18 Federal student aid handbook (Vol. 2). Washington, DC: United States Department of Education. https://ifap.ed.gov/ifap/byAwardYear.jsp?type=fsahandbook&awardyear=2017-2018

Oprisko, R. (2012). Superpowers: The American academic elite. Georgetown Public Policy Review , December 3. http://gppreview.com/2012/12/03/superpowers-the-american-academic-elite/

Phi Delta Kappa. (2019). Fifty-first annual poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools . Arlington: PDK International. https://pdkpoll.org/

Povich, E. S. (2018). More community colleges are offering bachelor’s degrees – and four-year universities aren’t happy about it. Stateline , April 26. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/04/26/more-community-colleges-are-offering-bachelors-degrees

Pulliam, J. D., & Van Patten, J. J. (2013). History and social foundations of education (10th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Ravitch, D. (1977). The revisionists revised: A critique on the radical attack on the schools . New York: Basic Books.

Ravitch, D. (1983). The troubled crusade: American education, 1945–1980 . New York: Basic Books.

Reitman, S. W. (1992). The educational messiah complex: American faith in the culturally redemptive power of schooling . Sacramento: Caddo Gap Press.

Ross, D. (1991). The origins of American social science . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schaefer, M. B., Malu, K. F., & Yoon, B. (2016). An historical overview of the middle school movement, 1963–2015. Research on Middle Level Education Online, 39 (5), 1–27.

Schneider, J. K. (2016). America’s not-so-broken education system: Do U.S. schools really need to be disrupted? The Atlantic.com , June 22. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/everything-in-american-education-is-broken/488189/

Schimmel, D., Stellman, L., Conlon, C. K., & Fischer, L. (2015). Teachers and the law (9th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Spring, J. H. (1994). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education of dominated cultures of the United States . New York: McGraw Hill.

Spring, J. H. (2013). The American school, a global context: From the puritans to the Obama administration (9th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

Stewart, K. (2012). The good news club: The Christian right’s stealth assault on America’s children . New York: Public Affairs.

United States Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement. (2009). State regulation of private schools . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. https://www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/regprivschl/regprivschl.pdf

United States National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. A report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Urban, W. J., Wagoner, J. L., Jr., & Gaither, M. (2019). American education: A history (6th ed.). New York: Routledge.

White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education. (2019). Tribal colleges and universities, U.S. Department of Education. https://sites.ed.gov/whiaiane/tribes-tcus/tribal-colleges-and-universities/

Williams, J. (1983). Reagan blames courts for education decline. Washington Post , June 30. A-2.

Yin, A. (2017). Education by the numbers: Statistics show just how profound the inequalities in America’s education system have become. New York Times Magazine , September 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/magazine/education-by-the-numbers.html

Download references

Acknowledgments

Funding from the University of Michigan’s Horace Rackham Graduate School and the UM’s Life Sciences Values and Society Program supported archival research and reproduction contributing to this work.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA

Paul R. Fossum

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul R. Fossum .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Sieglinde Jornitz

Institute of Education, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany

Marcelo Parreira do Amaral

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Fossum, P.R. (2021). The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations. In: Jornitz, S., Parreira do Amaral, M. (eds) The Education Systems of the Americas. Global Education Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_14

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_14

Published : 01 January 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-41650-8

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-41651-5

eBook Packages : Education Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Education

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• International Peace and Security
• Higher Education and Research in Africa
• Andrew Carnegie Fellows
• Great Immigrants
• Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy
• Reporting Requirements
• Modification Requests
• Communications FAQs
• Grants Database
• Philanthropic Resources
• Grantee FAQs
• Grantmaking Highlights
• Past Presidents
• The Gospel of Wealth
• Other Carnegie Organizations
• Andrew Carnegie’s Story
• Governance and Policies
• Media Center

What Changes to the U.S. Education System Are Needed to Support Long-Term Success for All Americans?

With the pandemic deepening inequities that threaten students’ prospects, the vice president of the Corporation’s National Program provides a vision for transforming our education system from one characterized by uneven and unjust results to one that puts all students on a path to bright futures 

At no point in our nation’s history have we asked so much of our education system as we do today. We ask that our primary and secondary schools prepare all students, regardless of background, for a lifetime of learning. We ask that teachers guide every child toward deeper understanding while simultaneously attending to their social-emotional development. And we ask that our institutions of higher learning serve students with a far broader range of life circumstances than ever before.

We ask these things of education because the future we aspire to requires it. The nature of work and civic participation is evolving at an unprecedented rate. Advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and social media are driving rapid changes in how we interact with each other and what skills hold value. In the world our children will inherit, their ability to adapt, think critically, and work effectively with others will be essential for both their own success and the well-being of society.

At Carnegie Corporation of New York, we focus on supporting people who are in a position to meet this challenge. That includes the full spectrum of educators, administrators, family members, and others who shape young people’s learning experiences as they progress toward and into adulthood. Our mission is to empower all students with the tools, systems, knowledge, and mindsets to prepare them to fully participate in the global economy and in a robust democracy.

All of our work is geared toward transforming student learning. The knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for success today call for a vastly different set of learning experiences than may have sufficed in the past. Students must play a more active role in their own learning, and that learning must encompass more than subject-matter knowledge. Preparing all children for success requires greater attention to inclusiveness in the classroom, differentiation in teaching and learning, and universal high expectations.

This transformation needs to happen in higher education as well. A high school education is no longer enough to ensure financial security. We need more high-quality postsecondary options, better guidance for students as they transition beyond high school, and sufficient supports to enable all students to complete their postsecondary programs. Preparing students for lifelong success requires stronger connections between K–12, higher education, and work.

The need for such transformation has become all the more urgent in the face of COVID-19. As with past economic crises, the downturn resulting from the pandemic is likely to accelerate the erosion of opportunities for low-skilled workers with only a high school education. Investments in innovative learning models and student supports are critical to preventing further inequities in learning outcomes. 

An Urgent Call for Advancing Equity 

The 2020–21 school year may prove to be the most consequential in American history. With unfathomable speed, COVID-19 has forced more change in how schools operate than in the previous half century.

What is most concerning in all of this is the impact on the most underserved and historically marginalized in our society: low-income children and students of color. Even before the current crisis, the future prospects of a young person today looked very different depending on the color of her skin and the zip code in which she grew up, but the pandemic exposed and exacerbated long-standing racial and economic inequities. And the same families who are faring worst in terms of disrupted schooling are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn and disproportionately getting sick, being hospitalized, and dying.

Our mission is to empower all students with the tools, systems, knowledge, and mindsets to prepare them to fully participate in the global economy and in a robust democracy.

Every organization that is committed to educational improvement needs to ask itself what it can do differently to further advance the cause of educational equity during this continuing crisis so that we can make lasting improvements. As we know from past experience, if the goal of equity is not kept front and center, those who are already behind through no fault of their own will benefit the least. If ever there were a time to heed this caution, it is now.

We hope that our nation will approach education with a new sense of purpose and a shared commitment to ensuring that our schools truly work for every child. Whether or not that happens will depend on our resolve and our actions in the coming months. We have the proof points and know-how to transform learning, bolster instruction, and meet the needs of our most disadvantaged students. What has changed is the urgency for doing so at scale.

Our starting place must be a vision of equal opportunity, and from there we must create the conditions that can actually ensure it — irrespective of how different they may look from the ones we now have. We need to reimagine the systems that shape student learning and put the communities whose circumstances we most need to elevate at the center of that process. We need to recognize that we will not improve student outcomes without building the capacity of the adults who work with them, supporting them with high-quality resources and meaningful opportunities for collaboration and professional growth. We need to promote stronger connections between K–12, higher education, and employment so that all students are prepared for lifelong success.

The pandemic has deepened inequities that threaten students’ prospects. But if we seize this moment and learn from it, if we marshal the necessary resources, we have the potential to transform our education system from one characterized by uneven and unjust results to one that puts all students on a path to bright futures.

In a pandemic-induced moment when the American education system has been blown into 25 million homes across the country, where do we go from here?

We Must Learn to Act in New Ways

These are not controversial ideas. In fact, they constitute the general consensus about where American education needs to go. But they also represent a tall order for the people who influence the system. Practically everyone who plays a part in education must learn to act in new ways.

That we have made progress in such areas as high school completion, college-going rates, and the adoption of college- and career-ready standards is a testament to the commitment of those working in the field. But it will take more than commitment to achieve the changes in student learning that our times demand. We can’t expect individuals to figure out what they need to do on their own, nor should we be surprised if they struggle to do so when working in institutional structures designed to produce different outcomes. The transformation we seek calls for much greater coordination and a broader set of allies than would suffice for more incremental changes.

Our starting place must be a vision of equal opportunity, and from there we must create the conditions that can actually ensure it — irrespective of how different they may look from the ones we now have.

Our best hope for achieving equity and the transformation of student learning is to enhance adults’ ability to contribute to that learning. That means building their capacity while supporting their authentic engagement in promoting a high-quality education for every child. It also means ensuring that people operate within systems that are optimized to support their effectiveness and that a growing body of knowledge informs their efforts.

These notions comprise our overarching strategy for promoting the systems change needed to transform student learning experiences on a large scale. We seek to enhance adult capacity and stakeholder engagement in the service of ensuring that all students are prepared to meet the demands of the 21st century. We also support knowledge development and organizational improvement to the extent that investments in these areas enhance adult capacity, stakeholder engagement, and student experiences.

Five Ways We Invest in the Future of Students

These views on how best to promote systems change in education guide our philanthropic work. The strategic areas of change we focus on are major themes throughout our five investment portfolios. Although they are managed separately and support different types of initiatives, each seeks to address its area of focus from multiple angles. A single portfolio may include grants that build adult capacity, enhance stakeholder engagement, and generate new knowledge.

New Designs to Advance Learning

Preparing all students for success requires that we fundamentally reimagine our nation’s schools and classrooms. Our public education system needs to catch up with how the world is evolving and with what we’ve come to understand about how people learn. That means attending to a broader diversity of learning styles and bringing what happens in school into greater alignment with what happens in the worlds of work and civic life. We make investments to increase the number of innovative learning models that support personalized experiences, academic mastery, and positive youth development. We also make investments that build the capacity of districts and intermediaries to improve learning experiences for all students as well as grants to investigate relevant issues of policy and practice.

Pathways to Postsecondary Success

Lifelong success in the United States has never been more dependent on educational attainment than it is today. Completing some education beyond the 12th grade has virtually become a necessity for financial security and meaningful work. But for that possibility to exist for everyone, we need to address the historical barriers that keep many students from pursuing and completing a postsecondary program, and we must strengthen the options available to all students for education after high school. Through our investments, we seek to increase the number of young people able to access and complete a postsecondary program, with a major focus on removing historical barriers for students who are first-generation college-goers, low-income, or from underrepresented groups. We also look to expand the range of high-quality postsecondary options and to strengthen alignment between K–12, higher education, and the world of work.

Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning

At its core, learning is about the interplay between teachers, students, and content. How teachers and students engage with each other and with their curriculum plays a predominant role in determining what students learn and how well they learn it. That’s not to say that factors outside of school don’t also greatly impact student learning. But the research is clear that among the factors a school might control, nothing outweighs the teaching that students experience. We focus on supporting educators in implementing rigorous college- and career-ready standards in math, science, and English language arts. We make investments to increase the supply of and demand for high-quality curricular materials and professional learning experiences for teachers and administrators.

Public Understanding

As central as they are to the education process, school professionals are hardly the only people with a critical role to play in student learning. Students spend far more time with family and other community members than they do at school. And numerous stakeholders outside of the education system have the potential to strengthen and shape what happens within it. The success of our nation’s schools depends on far more individuals than are employed by them. 

We invest in efforts to engage families and other stakeholders as active partners in supporting equitable access to high-quality student learning. We also support media organizations and policy research groups in building awareness about key issues related to educational equity and improvement.

Integration, Learning, and Innovation

Those of us who work for change in education need a new set of habits to achieve our vision of 21st-century learning. It will take more than a factory-model mindset to transform our education system into one that prepares all learners for an increasingly complex world. We must approach this task with flexibility, empathy for the people involved, and an understanding of how to learn from what’s working and what’s not. We work to reduce the fragmentation, inefficiencies, and missteps that often result when educational improvement strategies are pursued in isolation and without an understanding of the contexts in which they are implemented. Through grants and other activities, we build the capacity of people working in educational organizations to change how they work by emphasizing systems and design thinking, iteration, and knowledge sharing within and across organizations.

Two recent surveys by Carnegie Corporation of New York and Gallup offer insights into how our education system can better help all Americans navigate job and career choices

Join Us in This Ambitious Endeavor

Our approach of supporting multiple stakeholders by pulling multiple levers is informed by our deep understanding of the system we’re trying to move. American education is a massive, diverse, and highly decentralized enterprise. There is no mechanism by which we might affect more than superficial change in many thousands of communities. The type of change that is needed cannot come from compliance alone. It requires that everyone grapple with new ideas.

We know from our history of promoting large-scale improvements in American education that advancements won’t happen overnight or as the result of one kind of initiative. Our vision for 21st-century education will require more than quick wins and isolated successes. Innovation is essential, and a major thrust of our work involves the incubation and dissemination of new models, resources, and exemplars. But we must also learn to move forward with the empathy, flexibility, and systems thinking needed to support people in making the transition. Novel solutions only help if they can be successfully implemented in different contexts.

Only a sustained and concerted effort will shift the center of gravity of a social enterprise that involves millions of adults and many tens of millions of young people. The challenge of philanthropy is to effect widespread social change with limited resources and without formal authority. This takes more than grantmaking. At the Corporation, we convene, communicate, and form coalitions. We provide thought leadership, issue challenges, and launch new initiatives. Through these multifaceted activities, we maximize our ability to forge, share, and put into practice powerful new ideas that build a foundation for more substantial changes in the future.

We encourage everyone who plays a role in education to join us in this work. Our strategy represents more than our priorities as a grantmaker. It conveys our strong beliefs about how to get American education to where it needs to be. The more organizations and individuals we have supporting those who are working to provide students with what they need, the more likely we are to succeed in this ambitious endeavor. 

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan is the vice president of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s National Program and the program director for Education.

TOP: Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, a lower-school substitute teacher works from her home in Arlington, Virginia, on April 1, 2020. Her role in the school changed significantly due to the pandemic. Whereas she previously worked part-time to support teachers when they needed to be absent from the classroom, amid COVID-19 she now helps teachers to build skills with new digital platforms so they can continue to teach in the best way for their students and their families. (Credit: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

More than half of American counties are without access or have very limited access to local news. Political scientist and Andrew Carnegie Fellow Joshua P. Darr has been studying what the loss of local news means for American communities

Five nonprofits work together to help low-income young people tap their cultural wealth and thrive in college and careers 

Home — Essay Samples — Education — Educational System — American Education System

Essays on American Education System

Studying abroad: advantages of studying in the usa, the explanation behind the cause of the american education system lagging behind finnish schools, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Michael Moore’s Idiot Nation: The Flaws of American Education System

Impact of the american education system’s regulation on reading requirements, the american education system’s guidance plan, the need for a diversity course in american education system, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Racism in Education System of America

The flaws in america’s reproductive education, role of education in the united states, higher education in the usa, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

United States of America and Its Educational History

Leadership theories and their importance in teaching and education, my journey in american education, the school governing body in the usa, unequality in the u.s. educational system, online education in the usa, a comparative analysis of the education system in china and the usa, how two education policies no child left behind and bloomberg's a-f school grading have managed to close the gap in the united states, no child left behind act in america: a balance opinion, jonathan kozol’s critique of american school system in savage inequalities, an analysis of mark slouka's argument on the lack of humanities in american education, affirmative action policies in american colleges and universities, eric donald hirsch jr. influence on the american educational system, the lack of liberal arts education in america, brown v board of education and its influence on the american education system, rhetorical analysis of savage inequalities by jonathan kozol, accreditation vs licensure, rethinking k-12 education: defining a new model, a view of representation of different ethnic groups in american educational sector, my declaration of independence from unnecessary and gratuitous homework, relevant topics.

• High School
• Middle School
• Extracurricular Activities
• Homeschooling
• Online Vs. Traditional Classes
• Single Sex Schools
• Education System
• Kindergarten
• Education Inequality

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Bibliography

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

School Is for Everyone

By Anya Kamenetz

Ms. Kamenetz is a longtime education reporter and the author of “The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now,” from which this essay is adapted.

For the majority of human history, most people didn’t go to school. Formal education was a privilege for the Alexander the Greats of the world, who could hire Aristotles as private tutors.

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States began to establish truly universal, compulsory education. It was a social compact: The state provides public schools that are free and open to all. And children, for most of their childhood, are required to receive an education. Today, nine out of 10 do so in public schools.

To an astonishing degree, one person, Horace Mann, the nation’s first state secretary of education, forged this reciprocal commitment. The Constitution doesn’t mention education. In Southern colonies, rich white children had tutors or were sent overseas to learn. Teaching enslaved people to read was outlawed. Those who learned did so by luck, in defiance or in secret.

But Mann came from Massachusetts, the birthplace of the “common school” in the 1600s, where schoolmasters were paid by taking up a collection from each group of households. Mann expanded on that tradition. He crossed the state on horseback to visit every schoolhouse, finding mostly neglected, drafty old wrecks. He championed schools as the crucible of democracy — his guiding principle, following Thomas Jefferson, was that citizens cannot sustain both ignorance and freedom.

An essential part of Mann’s vision was that public schools should be for everyone and that children of different class backgrounds should learn together. He pushed to draw wealthier students away from private schools, establish “normal schools” to train teachers (primarily women), have the state take over charitable schools and increase taxes to pay for it all.

He largely succeeded. By the early 20th century all states had free primary schools, underwritten by taxpayers, that students were required to attend.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

United States Education System Essays

Racial achievement gap in the united states education system, popular essay topics.

• American Dream
• Artificial Intelligence
• Black Lives Matter
• Bullying Essay
• Career Goals Essay
• Causes of the Civil War
• Child Abusing
• Civil Rights Movement
• Community Service
• Cultural Identity
• Cyber Bullying
• Death Penalty
• Depression Essay
• Domestic Violence
• Freedom of Speech
• Global Warming
• Gun Control
• Human Trafficking
• I Believe Essay
• Immigration
• Importance of Education
• Israel and Palestine Conflict
• Leadership Essay
• Legalizing Marijuanas
• Mental Health
• National Honor Society
• Police Brutality
• Pollution Essay
• Racism Essay
• Romeo and Juliet
• Same Sex Marriages
• Social Media
• The Great Gatsby
• The Yellow Wallpaper
• Time Management
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Violent Video Games
• What Makes You Unique
• Why I Want to Be a Nurse
• Send us an e-mail

The Education System in the United States of America

From kindergarten to university.

Essay , 2010 , 7 Pages , Grade: 1,0

Autor:in: Alexander von Hohenberg (Author)

• eBook for only 5.99 € Download immediately. Incl. VAT Format: PDF and ePUB – for all devices

Many international students, who visit America for the first time and attend a school there, wonder about the prior education of their classmates. As there are many variations of the school system from state to state, the education system seems to be a bit confusing. Additionally, the structures and procedures at American universities differ from other systems, such as the German one. This essay will give you a brief overview of the U.S. education system, including important Acts as the “No Child Left Behind” Act and funding as well as admission to Universities.

• Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

American public schools face an existential enrollment crisis

Juana Summers

Jonaki Mehta

Katia Riddle

NPR’s Juana Summers talks with ProPublica ’s Alec MacGillis about his recent reporting on how declining enrollment is a crisis for American public schools.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The Education Issue Americans Agree on That’s Not Good News for Teaching

• Share article

As Democratic party leaders convene in Chicago to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential candidate, a new poll shows that public education is a potent campaign issue—especially among parents.

While the country is deeply divided on many issues, the latest PDK International poll on American attitudes toward education finds there are some education-related issues that have strong support across the political spectrum.

“There is an overwhelming number of Americans that support a focus on preparing students to enter the workforce and for attracting and retaining good teachers in our schools,” said PDK International CEO James Lane during a press briefing. “But there were three other topics that broke that 70 percent support threshold: increased focus on student mental health, helping students that have fallen behind academically—that post-COVID recovery—and then college affordability.”

Fifty-four percent of Americans say that public education will be extremely or very important in their vote for president, similar to what respondents said in a 2020 poll by PDK International. Traditionally, education is rarely a central focus of presidential campaigns for Democratic or Republican candidates.

Meanwhile, 70 percent of parents of school-age children said public education is either an extremely or very important election issue for them.

Overall, 6 in 10 Americans say they will support political candidates who vow to increase public school funding. That number is even higher among Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and parents, with 70 percent of each of those groups saying they favor candidates who promise to allocate more money to public education.

Where Democrats and Republicans differ on education issues

The poll draws from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults who were surveyed online in English and Spanish in late June. In its 56th year, the poll is an important gauge of American’s attitudes toward public education.

While there are several education issues with strong bipartisan agreement, there are some with large gaps of support between Democrats and Republicans. Among them: protecting students from discrimination in schools, access to public pre-K, and expanding charter schools.

That last item was the lowest priority among all respondents, with 35 percent of Americans saying expanding charter schools should receive increased focus from the next administration. Half of Republicans said it should be a priority, while only 22 percent of Democrats agreed—a similar finding to the 2020 PDK poll.

“With $440 million of federal money going into [expanding charter schools] every year, I just thought that at least one of the parties would have a majority of support for it,” said Lane.

This year’s poll did not ask about school vouchers or education savings accounts, which have become a popular education policy among Republicans, especially at the state level. The GOP’s 2024 platform calls for implementing universal school choice policies in all states, which would allow families to use public funds to pay for private school tuition.

When it comes to protecting students from discrimination in schools, 81 percent of Democrats, 53 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans indicated that should be a priority for the next presidential administration. The survey did not define the type of discrimination.

On access to free public pre-K, 71 percent of Democrats said it should be a priority, compared with 50 percent of independents and 48 percent of Republicans.

There are, however, several education policies that have strong bipartisan support.

Making sure that students are prepared to enter the workforce is an especially animating issue across the political board. Eighty-eight percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats and independents say they want the next administration to focus more federal attention on that area. That strong bipartisan support is reflected in the Democratic and GOP 2024 education platforms, both of which call for supporting more focus on job preparation in high schools.

Why Americans don’t want their children to become teachers

While Americans want students to be prepared for the workforce, there is one profession most of them want to see their children avoid: teaching. Sixty percent of Americans say they would not support their children choosing public school teaching for a career.

While that’s about the same response as in 2022, the last time this question was asked in a PDK International poll, it represents a staggering change over the past four decades. In 1969, three-quarters of Americans supported the idea of their children working as a public school teacher.

Here again we see a partisan divide: Democrats are 12 percentage points more likely than Republicans to say they support their children becoming teachers. Meanwhile, liberals—which the survey differentiates from Democrats—are the only group where 50 percent of respondents are comfortable with their children becoming public school educators.

For the first time this year, PDK International asked poll respondents why they don’t see teaching as an attractive career for their children. The most commonly cited reasons were inadequate pay and benefits, which 33 percent selected, and a lack of student discipline, which 27 percent selected. Both the Democratic and Republican party platforms put forth policy priorities related to teaching profession this election. The DNC platform, which was approved this week, pledges to recruit more teachers , paraprofessionals, and other educators through expanding high school training programs and raising teacher pay. The GOP platform calls for ending teacher tenure and adopting merit pay . While Americans don’t want their own children going into public education, attracting and retaining good teachers is another issue—along with student mental health—that sees strong support among Democrats, Republicans, and independents, Lane said.

Eighty-nine percent of Democrats, 79 percent of Republicans, and 77 percent of independents said this is an issue that the next administration should focus more on.

“Sometimes in politics, it’s talked about the differences between ideologies, but when we have such clear similarities and areas we can all agree on, I think that’s such a great opportunity,” said Lane.

Americans’ views on Biden and Trump’s education records

The poll also found that Americans’ views on President Joe Biden’s education track record are nearly identical to former President Donald Trump’s at this point in his presidency. Forty-five percent of Americans approve, and 50 percent disapprove, of Biden’s handling of education policy today, compared with 45 percent approving and 53 percent disapproving of Trump’s handling of education policy in the summer of 2020.

While politics—and how the next presidential administration might shape public schooling—is front and center right now, poll respondents also weighed in on another powerful force changing education: artificial intelligence.

Most—60 percent—are comfortable with teachers using AI in prepping lessons and student tutoring and standardized test prep. However, only 43 percent said they supported students using AI to help complete their homework.

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

The Philippines and United States Education Systems

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

The education system in the philippines.

The education system in the Philippines is similar to that of the United States. It starts at around the age of four when Filipino children find their way to a public school. The systems start from a nursery to Kindergarten which is then followed by primary school level that starts at around the age of 6 to 7 years old. After primary education, four years in a secondary school follow after which the students sit for College Entrance Examinations (CEE). It takes 3 to 5 years for a student to get a college degree or a diploma in the Philippines. Other types of school that do exist include; Preparatory school, private School, Science High School, and even international schools, Quisumbing, L. R. (2003).

An example of someone who has gone through the system is my partner Nada Ramirez who finished elementary and high school in Manila, Philippines. In 1980 she graduated from a private college as an Industrial Engineering major. She describes the education system in the Philippines as being similar to that in the United States. Like other Filipino children, she entered nursery school at the age of four. She then joined an elementary (primary) school that consists of six levels sub-divided into two levels; Elementary-level 1, which includes the first three levels, and Intermediate-level, which includes the last three levels.

Ramirez said that Primary education in the Philippines covers a wide curriculum. The core subjects include Mathematics, English, and Filipino. Other subjects include Sciences, Music, Art, Physical Education, Basic Computer, Home Economics, and Health. She did very well at primary school, and the most she liked was home economic and health courses. Ramirez learned English at primary school because the teaching language in all local schools is English. She noted that Filipino is considered only as a second language. All primary-level students generally graduate with knowledge of two or three languages. Like other Primary school students, she sat for the National Elementary Achievement Test that is intended to be a measure of a school’s competence and not a predictor of the student’s success in Secondary school.

She is proud of the fact that secondary education in the Philippines is mostly based on the American schooling system. It consists of four levels with each level focusing on a particular subject. Also termed as a High school, the first year of High school includes five core subjects; Algebra 1, Integrated Science, English I, Filipino I, and Philippine History I. The second year of High school involves taking the following subjects; Geometry, Biology, English II, Filipino II, and Asian History. In the third year, Trigonometry, Chemistry, American Literature, Filipino III, and World History, and Geography are the core subjects while in the final fourth year, students are required to take Calculus, Physics, World Literature, Filipino IV, and Economics. Other minor subjects include Health, Advanced Computer, Music, Arts, Technology and Home Economics, and Physical Education, Quisumbing, L. R. (2003)

Chinese schools in the Philippines add language and cultural subjects. At the same time, Secondary schools usually add some Business and Accountancy courses, while high schools in Science have Biology, Chemistry, and Physics on every level. Ramirez with other Secondary students sat for the National Secondary Achievement Test.

After finishing secondary education, students have a choice of either continuing their education by taking two or three years of vocational courses or going to college or university. Ramirez did not enter a Technical/ Vocational school that offers practical training in the Philippines. Technical schools also do offer a short program or two year – courses on technology courses like automotive technology, electronic technology, nursing aide, hotel and restaurant management, and computer technology. A certificate of successful completion or diploma is awarded to those students who complete these courses.

University education in the Philippines comprises the tertiary level of education. These are tertiary institutions (Colleges) that typically offer specialized courses, for example, in Science or in Liberal Arts, as well as Universities that house several constituent colleges or institutes, each offering academic degree programs of a particular type, Quisumbing, L. R. (2003)

The education system in the Philippines is not different from the United States system. Both systems share a great deal of similarity in that they all start from nursery-Kindergarten which is followed by the primary school level secondary school education and finally a college certificate/diploma or degree is earned from a tertiary institute; college or university.

Quisumbing, L. R. (2003). “Towards Quality Education for All-Round Human Development.”: Journal of Education for International Understanding 164.

• Evaluation Plan: How to Create?
• Why Economics Makes Even Fewer People Go to College
• Filipino Problem: Friendly to Hygiene and Unfriendly to Environment
• Doing business in the Philippines
• Immigration of Filipino Nurses to the United States
• The Banking Model of Education
• Productive Teacher-Student Interaction: Classroom Management
• Classroom Management Issues
• Adoption of Blackboard in a School Setting: Project Management Plan
• Reflection on HWC 509 and HWC 510 Courses
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, August 21). The Philippines and United States Education Systems. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-philippines-and-united-states-education-systems/

"The Philippines and United States Education Systems." IvyPanda , 21 Aug. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-philippines-and-united-states-education-systems/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Philippines and United States Education Systems'. 21 August.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Philippines and United States Education Systems." August 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-philippines-and-united-states-education-systems/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Philippines and United States Education Systems." August 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-philippines-and-united-states-education-systems/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Philippines and United States Education Systems." August 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-philippines-and-united-states-education-systems/.

Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact Samantha Putterman, PolitiFact

Leave your feedback

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-warnings-from-democrats-about-project-2025-and-donald-trump

Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and Donald Trump

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention.

And it was front and center on Night 1.

WATCH: Hauling large copy of Project 2025, Michigan state Sen. McMorrow speaks at 2024 DNC

“This is Project 2025,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about “Trump’s Project 2025” agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point.

“Don’t believe (Trump) when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it’ll do,” Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona.

Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups.

Much of the plan calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues. It lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president.

Project 2025 offers a sweeping vision for a Republican-led executive branch, and some of its policies mirror Trump’s 2024 agenda, But Harris and her presidential campaign have at times gone too far in describing what the project calls for and how closely the plans overlap with Trump’s campaign.

PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric. Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions.

Are Trump and Project 2025 connected?

To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “knows nothing” about it and has “no idea” who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.)

The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023.

Project 2025 is now winding down some of its policy operations, and director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, is stepping down, The Washington Post reported July 30. Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita denounced the document.

WATCH: A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors

However, Project 2025 contributors include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s “very supportive of what we do.” He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document.

Project 2025 wouldn’t ban abortion outright, but would curtail access

The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed “Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers” would “go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide.”

The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access.

What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list.

Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should “return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.”

It recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for around 63 percent in 2023.

If mifepristone were to remain approved, Project 2025 recommends new rules, such as cutting its use from 10 weeks into pregnancy to seven. It would have to be provided to patients in person — part of the group’s efforts to limit access to the drug by mail. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval over procedural grounds.

WATCH: Trump’s plans for health care and reproductive rights if he returns to White House The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment.

The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention how many abortions take place within their borders. The plan also would prohibit abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds. It also calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the training of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, omits abortion training.

The document says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that can be taken within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health insurers to cover recommended preventive services, which involves a range of birth control methods, including emergency contraception.

Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives. Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court “approved” it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions.

Project 2025 doesn’t call for cutting Social Security, but proposes some changes to Medicare

“When you read (Project 2025),” Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, “you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program.

Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views.

In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s campaign website says that not “a single penny” should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False.

Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the “default” enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements.

The manual also calls for repealing health policies enacted under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The law enabled Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for the first time in history, and recently resulted in an agreement with drug companies to lower the prices of 10 expensive prescriptions for Medicare enrollees.

Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare.

Project 2025 would eliminate the Education Department, which Trump supports

The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would “eliminate the U.S. Department of Education” — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy “should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet.

In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and “to send all education work and needs back to the states.” Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress.

What Project 2025, Trump would do on overtime pay

In the graphic, the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows “employers to stop paying workers for overtime work.”

The plan doesn’t call for banning overtime wages. It recommends changes to some Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulations and to overtime rules. Some changes, if enacted, could result in some people losing overtime protections, experts told us.

The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold “that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).” This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In 2019, the Trump’s administration finalized a rule that expanded overtime pay eligibility to most salaried workers earning less than about $35,568, which it said made about 1.3 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The Trump-era threshold is high enough to cover most line workers in lower-cost regions, Project 2025 said.

The Biden administration raised that threshold to $43,888 beginning July 1, and that will rise to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. That would grant overtime eligibility to about 4 million workers, the Labor Department said.

It’s unclear how many workers Project 2025’s proposal to return to the Trump-era overtime threshold in some parts of the country would affect, but experts said some would presumably lose the right to overtime wages.

Other overtime proposals in Project 2025’s plan include allowing some workers to choose to accumulate paid time off instead of overtime pay, or to work more hours in one week and fewer in the next, rather than receive overtime.

Trump’s past with overtime pay is complicated. In 2016, the Obama administration said it would raise the overtime to salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year, about double the exemption level set in 2004 of $23,660 a year.

But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama.

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Why we must transform our education systems, now

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, the hon. minister david sengeh and the hon. minister david sengeh minister of education and chief innovation officer - government of sierra leone, chief innovation officer - directorate of science, technology and innovation in sierra leone rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development.

June 23, 2022

This blog summarizes the research “ Transforming education systems: Why, what, and how .”

Every single day, the challenges of global education become more daunting and more urgent. Just a few days ago on June 21, the United Nations reported that as many as 222 million school-aged children impacted by crisis require urgent educational support — this number is three times the estimates from 2016.  Furthermore, as currently reported by the World Bank and UNICEF, the portion of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries during the pandemic who could not read a simple story is estimated to have grown from about 50 percent to over 70 percent today. The poorest children and those living in remote regions have been hit the hardest. We are at a critical inflection point with hundreds of millions of children likely to miss out on a quality education in the very moment where we have to confront climate change, increasing conflict, and renewed pandemic risks. Alarm bells are being sounded and the United Nations secretary general has invited political leaders, policymakers, youth, and all stakeholders to join him at the Transforming Education Summit (TES) in New York in September 2022 to make commitments that will transform education.   

We agree that something different and transformational needs to happen now. But what does transformation mean, anyway?   

Here we share a condensed version of our perspective on how policymakers can better understand what it means and most importantly get started with making significant commitments for action. We don’t have the final answers, but we want to share the perspective of a global think tank that has studied the development of education systems over the past 100 years and a national government from a low-income country in the midst of an education transformation. You can read the full report here and the executive summary here .  

What is education system transformation?  

At its core, system transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of our education systems. There must be a frank assessment — are the goals meeting the moment that we are in and are they owned broadly across society? If the answer is “no,” then transformation means repositioning all components of the education system to coherently contribute to a new, shared purpose.  

We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the [education] transformation journey forward wherever they are.

We propose three steps centered on purpose, pedagogy, and position that embed a participatory, inclusive approach as the key to successful transformation.  

Step 1: Start with purpose  

Education leaders, families, teachers, and students can have very different expectations about the purpose of their education system. Without a broadly shared vision in and outside of the education system, any attempt at transformation will have a slim chance of success. When education leaders do take the time to have meaningful conversations with diverse stakeholders about the goals of education, it can help pave the way for a broadly shared vision. Such a shared vision has played a key role in successful reforms in Portugal, Finland, and Canada.    

In Sierra Leone, the most recent education sector plan was developed after careful and thorough consultations with a wide group of stakeholders. In addition to the national and local government, partner countries and civil society organizations, the government has made a point of consulting previously excluded groups like the bike riders union, the market women’s associations, and traditional and religious leaders across the country. Given the deep inequality in students’ learning in Sierra Leone which was highlighted by all stakeholders, the education sector plan and strategy prioritize foundational learning not as an end goal but as the floor to give every child a chance for longer-term educational success. And the country now puts the children who are currently learning the least at the front of its efforts thanks to its Policy on Radical Inclusion in Schools.   

Step 2: (Re)design the pedagogical core  

The second step is to (re)design teaching and learning experiences to ensure students achieve the system’s stated goals. Unfortunately, redesigning education systems often results in limited results for children’s learning and development. We need to focus more on what students are expected to learn — not just how that content is delivered—and we need to pay special attention to those who are learning the least.   

Some of the most promising results that take this approach to heart in recent years come from a practice called Teaching at the Right Level. Grouping children by ability level and conducting interactive learning activities for a period of time each day is at the core of this methodology. Real-time assessments provide data needed to move students on to higher level groups as they master skills. The approach is most effective for education systems that have large numbers of students failing to master literacy and numeracy by the end of primary school and where the default teaching approach is whole group instruction, even with very large class sizes.   

In Sierra Leone, the country has joined the first cohort of World Bank Accelerator Program countries to explicitly change its pedagogical core to support foundational learning. In addition, the country has launched the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge to generate key evidence on what can help improve learning outcomes. Several of the service providers are adopting Teaching at the Right Level to improve learning outcomes. Initial signs are positive for our learning outcomes, as even with COVID-19 disruptions, we do not have major learning losses even if no gains were made.   

Step 3: Position and align system components  

Next, the system must be positioned to support the pedagogical core across the following six components: (1) Curriculum, (2) Human resources, (3) Data and assessment, (4) Governance, (5) Funding, and (6) Engagement of “winners” and “losers” in the alignment process.  

In Sierra Leone, the government has recently updated the preprimary, basic, senior secondary, civic, and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) curricula. In addition, the country has paid special attention to using data to support the realignment behind the updated  pedagogical core while investing in teacher training at all levels.   

Before 2018, Sierra Leone had little detailed information about who its education system served and who it left out. Data collection had used paper-based questionnaires, and, as a result, data were often lagging by up to a year and scattered across multiple government departments. Sierra Leone set about digitizing its annual school census and cut the data collection time to 10 weeks. By also carefully updating the questions asked, Sierra Leone shed light on who was left out of the system. Now the Annual School Census is both gender-disaggregated and asks about the disability status of the students and the accessibility of the classrooms. Moreover, the Ministry digitized and linked education data going all the way back to 2015. This gave the Ministry a data-driven starting point for addressing disparities within the education system, and it remains a crucial component supporting its goals of developing a more inclusive system, including for pregnant girls and children with disabilities.   

What now?  

We believe that there is much to learn from history and solutions currently being implemented around the world to help us. As Minister Sengeh’s Co-Chair of the TES Advisory Committee and the Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed recently said: “This is not ‘t’ for tweaking. This is ‘T’ for Transformation.” We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the transformation journey forward wherever they are — and for those that are further along on the path, please do share your experiences with us and the world. We look forward to adding your learnings and lessons to the collective effort to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4—quality education for all.   

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Lydia Wilbard

August 29, 2024

Christine Apiot Okudi, Atenea Rosado-Viurques, Jennifer L. O’Donoghue

August 23, 2024

Sudha Ghimire

August 22, 2024

• Home News Tribune
• Courier News
• Jersey Mayhem
• NJ Politics
• National Politics

College essays matter. Here's how to write one that stands out | College Connection

Students facing the college application process typically dread one component: the Common App essay. 

Students are presented with six essay prompts, as well as a seventh option, which is “topic of your choice.” Students therefore have limitless possibilities for this essay which will be carefully reviewed by each college to which the student applies.

The goal of college admissions officers is to learn about the student who is applying: personal qualities, struggles, ambitions, priorities. On other parts of the application a student’s “data” is detailed. So, this is not the place to write about one’s SAT scores, GPA, or intended major, or to enumerate one’s activities. It is the place to write about an event, situation, or life circumstance that has influenced the student’s attitudes, goals, and perceptions of life.

The options are limitless. Students can write about life occurrences that impacted them: an illness, a learning disability, a relocation. They can use a sport, club, organization, or volunteer group as the overarching framework within which they learned important life lessons. 

More: The biggest key to college acceptance | College Connection

One student’s essay, which went viral after its author was accepted to a multitude of Ivy League schools, focused on lessons she learned from visits to Costco over the years. In short, students can write about anything that has impacted them – hopefully in a positive way.

Then, students face supplemental essays. Many colleges, including almost all the most competitive ones, require an essay that is specific to the school. Typically, the question is along the lines of, “Why do you want to attend this institution?” or “Why did you choose your particular major and how will our school prepare you to meet your future goals?”

More: These are the latest trends in college admissions | College Connection

Colleges are aware that students typically apply to 8 to 12 different schools, and they are trying to discern “demonstrated interest,” or, in other words, the likelihood of a student enrolling if accepted. So, students should utilize each supplemental essay as an opportunity to demonstrate their interest in the particular college, and should specifically state the courses, programs, study abroad options, internships, and any other characteristics that make the institution a perfect match for their college ambitions.

By showing enthusiasm for each school and sharing their attributes through the Common App and supplemental essays, students will greatly enhance their prospects of experiencing a successful college application process.   

Susan Alaimo is the founder & director of Collegebound Review, offering PSAT/SAT ® preparation & private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362 .

Our Services

Admissions Support

US / Ivy League Admissions

UK / Oxbridge Admissions

EU Admissions

Graduate Admissions

Crimson MBA

Athletics Sport Recruitment

Online Tutoring

Crimson Rise

Crimson Global Academy

Get your Essay Reviewed

Crimson Foundation Programs

US Boarding School Program

Crimson Research Institute

Oxbridge Summer Residential Program

Financial Aid & Merit Scholarship

Our Student Success

Our Leaders, Advisors, & Investors

Meet Our Teams

Our Reviews

Our Mentors

Student Success

Crimson In the News

Careers at Crimson

Tutoring at Crimson

Crimson Scholarships

US College Admissions Calculator

UK University Admissions Calculator

Mini SAT Practice Test

Other Calculators & Convertors

SAT/ACT Converter

University Profiles

Crimson YouTube Channel

Top of the Class Podcast

Extracurricular Opportunities

Personal Essay Topic Generator

+1 (672) 202-4203

Go back to all articles

Comparing US and Canadian Universities: Key Differences and What You Need to Know

Choosing the right university is one of the most significant decisions you and your child will make. For Canadian students considering all options available, the decision often comes down to whether to stay within Canada or venture south to the US for the Ivy League or other top universities.  

This blog will guide you through the key considerations, offer insights into both US and Canadian institutions, and provide practical advice to help you make an informed choice for your child’s future.  

Key Differences Between US and Canadian Universities

Both systems offer unique benefits and challenges, and being aware of these differences can guide you in selecting the institution that best fits your needs.

Admissions Process

• US Universities: Have holistic admissions reviews including GPA, test scores , extracurriculars , essays and letters of recommendation. There is an emphasis on personal statements and interviews.
• Canadian Universities: The primary criterion for admission is academic performance, with universities focusing heavily on high school transcripts. Specific grade thresholds may apply depending on the program and institution.

Class Size and Academic Environment

• US Universities: US universities often feature a broader range of class sizes, from large lectures to very small seminars and tutorials. This allows for more personalized interaction with faculty in smaller settings and greater opportunities for specialized, in-depth discussions.
• Canadian Universities: Canadian universities generally have larger class sizes, particularly in the early years of undergraduate study. For example, institutions like the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal serve large student populations, leading to more lecture-based courses and fewer small-group classes.

Cost and Financial Aid

• US Universities: Generally have higher tuition fees but most schools offer extensive financial aid options including grants, scholarships and loans. All schools provide need-based and/or merit-based aid.
• Canadian Universities: Tuition is generally lower, while financial aid options are limited.

Campus Life and Extracurriculars

• US Universities: There is a strong emphasis on campus life, including a wide range of clubs, sports, and student organizations. Most students live on campus for at least their first few years, with schools offering various housing options that foster a vibrant campus community.
• Canadian Universities:   While Canadian universities do offer some campus activities and student groups, these tend to have a stronger academic focus compared to their US counterparts. Additionally, some Canadian universities have limited on-campus housing, with many students needing to find off-campus accommodations.

Why the Choice Matters

Choosing between US and Canadian universities is a significant decision that can shape your education experience and future opportunities. US Universities often provide a broader range of academic options and extracurricular activities, with smaller class sizes and vibrant campus communities. Canadian Universities offer a more streamlined academic structure with fewer actives at a generally lower cost. The decision affects not only your immediate university experience but also your long term career opportunities and financial considerations.

How to Evaluate

• Define Your Priorities: Identity what aspects of university life are most important to you. Consider how each factor aligns with your professional goals.
• Research Academic Programs: Compare the strength and specialization of academic programs. Look into course offerings, faculty expertise, and research opportunities in your field of interest.
• Assess Campus Life: Explore the campus culture and student life. Evaluate the availability of clubs, sports and organizations as well as housing options.
• Evaluate Class Sizes and Learning Environment: Consider the class sizes and learning environment along with your personal learning style and needs. Assess which environment aligns with how you learn best to ensure you select a university where you can excel academically and engage effectively with the material.
• Understand Financial Implications: Analyze the cost of attendance, including tuition, fees, and living experiences. Compare scholarships, financial aid options and the overall affordably of each institution.
• Consider Long-Term Outcomes: Research the career services, internship opportunities, and alumni network of each university. Evaluate how well each school prepares students for their future careers and how its reputation may impact job prospects.

Final Thoughts

When evaluating prospective universities, it's crucial to look beyond academics and consider several key factors. Begin by assessing the location and climate to ensure they align with your personal preferences and lifestyle. Reflect on the campus culture and whether it suits your social needs and interests. Evaluate the health and wellness services, as well as the quality and availability of career development and internship opportunities. Strong student support services, including academic advising and tutoring, are essential for your success and well-being. By thoroughly examining these aspects, you'll be better positioned to choose a university that truly supports your academic and personal growth.

Talk with friends, family, and alumni about different schools. Consider visiting your favourite campuses or going on a virtual tour if you can. Crimson has a  YouTube channel  with videos about students getting into college, a day in the life of a student, and much more! 

Crimson counsellors can also help you find the universities that best fit your interests and goals. If you have any questions or need personalized advice on finding the right university for you, our team is here to help. Sign up for a consultation with one of our experts to discuss your options and make the most informed choice for your higher education journey.

More Articles

U.s. college application deadlines: what you need to know.

Ace Your NYU Supplemental Essay: Expert Advice from a Former Admissions Officer

How To Answer the 2024-25 Coalition App Essay Prompts

• School of Management >
• Faculty/Research >
• Academic Departments >
• Management Science and Systems >
• Faculty >

Assistant Professor Management Science and Systems

PhD, University of California, Irvine MS, ESSEC Business School and CentraleSupelec, Paris, France BA, University of California, Irvine

• Technology and innovation management

Research Interests

• Digital platforms
• Machine learning
• Artificial intelligence

Publications

Do Sellers Benefit from Sponsored Product Listings? Evidence from an Online Marketplace , with Mingyu (Max) Joo and Vibhanshu Abhishek. Marketing Science , Vol.43, No. 4, 2024, pp. 817–839.

• Winner, ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Early-Stage Research Grant, 2022

Multi-View Collaborative Network Embedding , with Sezin Kircali Ata, Yuan Fang, MinWu, Chee Keong Kwoh, and Xiaoli Li. ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data (TKDD) 15.3 (2021): 1-18

Metagraph-Based Learning on Heterogeneous Graphs , with Yuan Fang, Wenqing Lin, Vincent W. Zheng, Min Wu, Kevin Chen-Chuan Chang, and Xiaoli Li. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering , 33, no. 1 (2019): 154-168.

Working Papers

Consumer Aversion to Price Volatility: Implications to Airbnb’s Algorithmic Pricing, with Jinan Lin, Tingting Nian, and Mingyu (Max) Joo. Target: Information System Research

• INFORMS ISS Cluster Best Paper Award Shortlist, 2023

Contact Information

Jiaqi Shi Assistant Professor Management Science and Systems School of Management University at Buffalo 325N Jacobs Management Center Buffalo, NY 14260-4000

Tel: 716-645-5482 [email protected]