h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: American Education - A470288
Author: Two Bit Trigger Pumping Moron - U35376

This is meant as a thumbnail sketch of American education. It's meant to help people understand what it means when an American is in the 6th Grade or when she has a grade of B.

I originally wrote it because I couldn't understand what forms and levels meant in European contexts. I thought a Europan might want to be able to find out what our terms meant.

I forgot about it until Jordan [U201497] found it.

Very, very useful... I've often wondered what it all means when people say they're in ninth grade, or whatever...

One slight quibble - could you be a little more specific as to what you mean by 'America'? Is your entry specific to the USA, or does it include the whole of North America (ie Canada as well), or relate to the entire American continent all the way down to Cape Horn?

I don't consider myself anti-American by any stretch of the imagination, but I have quite a few Latin American friends (from Chile and Brazil, mainly) that get a bit sensitive about people saying 'America' when they mean the USA, so it's probably worth bearing that sort of thing in mind...

I object to my name credited as Jordan. I am Jodan

Now that you mention it, I recall reading about that being one of your pet peeves. I apologize.

What do you expect from me? I went to public school and learned sight reading.

I sort of think this could be titled "US Education System" ... but other than that, it's A-! Can't believe it's not been written before!

I had the odd experience of attending US public, US private, and Italian schools in my time - the amount and methods for teaching history and science are the #1 differences, if you ask me.

Maybe

- JD

I don't want to include the word system in the title, because that implies that theree's some consious effort to provide structure to the whole thing, and there isn't.

I've done a search on US and American in the Editted Guide, and it seems that American is often used to describe something related to the US. More entries that use American than use US.

In the table of ages against grade, is that the age of thechild when they start in that grade or when they leave?

You're saying that there is no conscious effort to organize or structure the way we educate our children in the USA? I know a lot of people who would take great umbrage at that statement!

Seriously - how can you say that when there given the very sections you write about? That is, the correlation of grades to age and ability levels and the way grading is done - sure seems like a structure to me.

- JD

I said: "Seriously - how can you say that when there given the very sections you write about?" Sheesh, I should be so well-edumakated as to talk good. I meant to say, "... how can you say that given the very sections you write about?"


- JD (grammar is inversely proportional to the time one takes to post)

When you said 'I recall reading about that being one of your pet peeves', I thought you meant me, not Jo(r)dan!

Anyway, about the America thing... just because it's been done before doesn't necessarily mean it's right, or that certain people from certain places don't find it irritating - it more probably reflects the cultural origins and outlook of those involved with writing and editing the pieces, and the fact that an annoying pedant like myself wasn't around to point it out .

American (see, I'm doing it now) writer Bill Bryson has said that the USA is a very odd nation to have to refer to specifically and accurately, because the most common names used for it ('America' and 'the United States') do apply to other nations or entire continents as well as the United States (of America) - as Jodan will doubtless tell you, Mexico is also a United States and so is Brazil, sort of...

Just because different education systems use the same terms, I don't think the whole general mish mash of schools in the United States is a system. Maybe it is. I don't know. I often refer to the criminal justice system, and the only accurate word in their is criminal.

As for the US v. America thing, langauge isn't always a thing that makes logical sense. Americans almost always referes to people who live in the United States of America. There's not really another word that is generally used to refer to people from our country. Not one that can be used in polite society at any rate.

Apparantly, the proper name of Mexico is the United Mexican States. The proper name for Brazil is the Federative Republic of Brazil. If Mexico or Brazil wanted to lay claim to the title United States, then they should have thought of it first. Someone else trying to use it would be like having NATO saying it wants to be called the United Nations to because it consists of several nations gathered for a purpose.

All this goes to say that I won't change American in the title. I might add System. I guess I could put a footnote in about the ages. It's really just a thumbnail way of saying how old someone in a particular grade is likely to be.

Ahh, I remember being told that. We even had an askh2g2 thread aboot it. Did you include the wide variety of school levels at different districts (IE, Some schools have Kindergarten-5, some have 1-7, some have K-7, oh the list goes on and on). I read this aboot a month ago, so I apologize if that's in there.

No, I should put something in there about that.

One point I'd be interested in learning more about... at what age can a pupil legally leave school... do they have to go all the way up through the highschool system or, as is the case in the UK, can they leave after their sixteenth birthday?

A student can drop out of High School and leave

I don't know that I want to get into that. In Oregon it was 16. I know that because I stopped going to school within a few days of my 16th birthday. I suspect that age varies by state and by circumstance.

In that case how about just adding something along the lines of "school leaving ages can vary from state to state"

I found quite a bit that's incorrect here, both factually and grammatically. Starting with the first paragraph:

"There are also private schools which are mostly religious schools. There is a growing movement where children are Home Schooling by their parents."

While it would have been true once to say that private schools were mostly religious, this is less and less true every year. It is still true in the southern US, but is probably not statistically correct in many parts of the US, where secular private schools predominate. In many urban areas, schools that were founded as religious schools are completely nonsectarian now -- this is also the case for the private "prep" schools on the east coast.

The second sentence is grammatically incorrect -- children are not "Home Schooling by their parents", children are "home schooled by their parents".

States require more than just a bachelors degree in teaching to be certificated -- you also have to have student teaching, and in most states there are now standardized tests to be passed. There is also a national level of certification that states encourage their teachers to apply for (by offering them extra pay if they get it).

The table with the grades and info on middle school/junior high is a little misleading. The difference between middle school and junior high is simply a matter of semantics, not a matter of grade levels -- there are middle schools that are 6-8 and ones that are 7-9 and ones that are 7-8, and there are junior highs with exactly the same combinations.

The info for grades is not necessarily standardized -- in some school systems, it's 93% and up is an A, etc.

Another issue that should be added to "things people disagree on" in American education is "gifted education".

Oh, and the statement that the school boards are usually elected at the county level is also incorrect -- school boards are elected at the school district level, and school district boundaries are not necessarily going to have anything to do with county boundaries. In urban areas, they are more likely to be city boundaries. Some urban areas actually have more than one school district, due to political maneuvering (this usually has to do with rich parents not wanting their children and money mixed in with those of poor parents).