![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
Requirements for advancement from grade to grade, or even from the elementary to the secondary level, are not standardized in the United States. Decisions on whether to promote a student from one class to the next have traditionally been made primarily on the basis of the student's academic performance. The one major exception occurs at the kindergarten level, where readiness to enter the first grade is often dependent on the teacher's (and sometimes the parents') assessment of the child's social and emotional readiness as much as his or her knowledge or readiness to learn.
Historically, decisions to promote or hold back a student were made at the local school level, on the basis of evaluations made by individual teachers or building officials. American school systems seldom established formal system-level tests or examinations to qualify students for entry and continuation in programs or for certification at the completion of a program (McPartland and Crain 1987).
However, in response to reports detailing the declining quality of American education, the late 1970s and 1980s saw the introduction of state and school district minimum competency examinations. These tests are usually given at critical junctures in both the elementary and secondary levels and are frequently tied to promotion to the next level of schooling or to the awarding of a high school diploma (McPartland and Crain 1987).
It should be emphasized that these tests are developed by local or statewide education agencies; no national standardized test exists in the United States. The only tests administered in the United States that approximate a national standardized test are the examinations that college-bound students are usually required to take?the SAT or ACT; but because of their function, they are not taken by all senior high school students.
To enroll in postsecondary programs—such as vocational-training programs, two-year community college programs, or four-year colleges—students must have a high school diploma or, alternatively, a certificate of General Educational Development (GED). Students not continuing in postsecondary programs have also found that a high school diploma or GED is a basic requirement for employment as well as a key to career advancement in the workplace. Individuals who dropped out of high school can later complete their high school education or earn their GED by enrolling in adult education classes through their local school district.
Like K-12 education, adult education is not standardized on a national level. Although the program requirements are mandated in a general way at the state level, they vary by school district primarily because the actual development and implementation of adult education classes occurs at the school district level.
Sponsored by the American Council on Education, the GED program enables individuals to demonstrate that they have acquired a level of learning comparable to that of high school graduates (General Educational Development Testing Service 1993). To obtain a GED, an individual must pass a set of standardized tests in five different subject area tests, for which each state sets its minimum score requirements. Individuals who successfully complete the GED tests earn a certificate issued by their state's department of education, not a high school diploma.
The requirements for receipt of a high school diploma through adult education programs are significantly different from GED requirements. Adult education students may decide to pursue the high school diploma directly or may enroll in adult high school classes following receipt of their GED. To earn a high school diploma, an adult must enroll in adult high school classes and complete a specific number of courses in specific subject areas, such as English, mathematics and science, social studies (including U.S. history and government), and computer skills. The remaining required credits are electives from either an academic or vocational track. Attendance is mandatory for registered students, and their coursework is graded.
Adult education programs throughout the country are funded largely by state and local revenue sources. In 1991, for instance, total state expenditures for adult education programs came to $622 million. In contrast, federal expenditures for adult education programs in 1991 totaled $157 million (National Adult Education Professional Development Consortium [NAEPDC] 1992).
Many people attend adult education programs. In 1991 alone, 1,180,846 people participated in adult secondary education programs (USED 1993b) with the goal of obtaining either the GED or a high school diploma.
Most GEDs are awarded to young adults after they fairly quickly realize that a certificate of high school equivalency is important to their future employment possibilities. In 1992, for instance,
Statistics on unemployment rates appear to confirm the need for a high school diploma or GED. In 1992, the highest unemployment rates were among those without high school diplomas. Unemployment for non-high school graduates who were between 20 and 24 years old was 22.3 percent (NAEPDC 1992), in contrast to the national average for unemployment, which was approximately 7 percent.
Traditionally, public education at the elementary and secondary level in America has been primarily the responsibility of state and local governments, which contribute about 92 percent of the nation's total spending for education (USED 1993c). Such decentralized control over schools and their funding has led to variability in educational opportunities within public school systems. To address this variability as well as the lack of responsiveness to the needs of certain student populations, the federal government began to increase its involvement in education in the 1960s. As federal legislation was passed to provide support for these populations through a series of categorical grants designed to promote equal opportunity, regulations concerning the use of funds were put into place, and schools were held accountable for how the money was used.
The first significant piece of legislation that provided federal funding to public schools was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. A major section of the law, Title I, allocates funds to school districts to expand and improve educational programs for children from low-income families. Subsequent federal legislation has provided funding for other populations that have traditionally not been fully served by the public schools, such as children for whom English is a second language, and children with physical and mental disabilities.
Even with the funding of these special programs, federal funds for education are a small portion of the total amount spent on elementary and secondary education. At its highest level, in 1979-80, federal funding made up only 9.8 percent of the total amount of money spent on elementary and secondary education. Until the 1970s, when states became more active, local revenue sources provided the majority of funding for elementary and secondary schools. Since the late 1970s, state and local sources have each contributed approximately half of all funding for the nation's public elementary and secondary schools. In 1992-93, for instance,
In 1994-95, total expenditures for education, including higher education, were expected to amount to about 7.5 percent of the United States gross domestic product (USED 1995).
Public elementary and secondary schools have increased per pupil expenditures in recent years. In 1994?95, the estimated current expenditure per student was $6,084. After adjustment for inflation, this represents an increase of 23 percent since 1984-85 (USED 1995). Yet, despite the steady increases, a wide range in per pupil expenditures still exists across states and even across school districts within the same state because of the public school system's heavy reliance on state and local governments for funding.
Private schools support themselves almost entirely through tuition fees. Although private schools are eligible for some support from federal grants to provide equal education opportunities for students targeted by federal legislation—students with disabilities or students for whom English is a second language—in order to receive federal grants they must agree to provide these programs in a nonreligious fashion (Caldwell 1990).
Just as funding for public schools in the United States is decentralized, so too is policy and curriculum decision-making. State legislatures and local school districts share the regulation of and control the operation of elementary and secondary schools. The role of the federal government is minimal, and its influence on schools is largely a result of federal legislation providing funding for school districts to develop supplemental programs to equalize opportunities for all students. At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education collects data on all aspects of the United States education system and makes recommendations to Congress, the President (the head of the U.S. Department of Education sits in the President's cabinet), and the states. The Department's role as a disseminator of this information cannot be understated, although unlike education departments at the national level in other countries, it does not regulate the way schools operate or set standards; it influences education in the United States by creating a national dialogue on important education issues and by providing the state departments of education with statistics to back state legislative proposals.
Public education, overall, is a state responsibility, with a substantial level of community control achieved through the creation and empowerment under state law of locally elected school boards that have responsibility for schools in a district, subject to state laws and regulations (Caldwell 1990). School boards made up of locally elected citizens advise the school administration, set goals and priorities, and assess the extent to which goals and priorities are being met in the schools.
A few generalizations can be made about the traditional loci of some of the major decisions that affect public school systems in the United States:
Because of this decentralized nature of governance, only a few generalizations can be made about the time that students spend in school in the United States. On average, students spend about 180 days attending school each year, although the range is from 175 to 183 across the states. The average length of the school day is approximately 6.5 hours, ranging from 6.1 to 7.1 across the states; approximately 5.6 of these hours are spent in instruction. Public and private school students spend similar amounts of time attending school (USED 1993a).
School districts are usually divided into levels (elementary and secondary) according to the ages of students. In larger districts, each level is also divided into geographic regions. The superintendent of schools is the chief administrator of a public school district. The superintendent is responsible for the administrative activity within the district, including the management of finances and personnel, the maintenance of buildings and other physical resources, and interaction with agencies of federal and state governments (Barr and Dreeben 1983). Although superintendents oversee all activity within school districts, school principals assist them in the management of schools.
Principals administer individual schools. In larger schools, they may be aided by one or more assistant principals. They are responsible for preparing a budget for their school and are accountable to the superintendent of the district for the use of funds. In addition, the principal is responsible for the assignment of children to specific teachers, allocation of learning materials to classrooms, arrangement of a schedule, establishment of disciplinary standards and school policies, and assessment of districtwide instructional goals (Caldwell 1990; Barr and Dreeben 1983).
Teachers are responsible for the instruction in their classrooms and for the suborganization of the class for instructional purposes. They work with the administration and the school board on curricular and extracurricular matters and report to the principal of the school on matters of instruction and discipline. Teachers at the elementary level are sometimes assisted in their classroom by teacher's aides or community volunteers. Although team teaching is becoming more popular at the elementary level along with other experimental teaching practices now in limited use across the United States, most elementary teachers are responsible for teaching multiple subjects to a single class of students. At the secondary level, teachers specialize in subject areas and are assigned to teach particular subjects (Barr and Dreeben 1983).
Although teachers and instructional staff make up the majority of employees in the public schools (53.3 percent are classroom teachers and 11.7 percent hold other instructional positions), support service staff are also important to school operations. Administrative support personnel, librarians and library support individuals, guidance counselors, cooks, janitorial and maintenance staff, and school bus drivers all contribute to the operation of the school. A significant portion of a school district's budget is allocated to support services, since nearly one-third (30.5 percent) of full-time equivalent employees in public schools are support staff (USED 1993a).
In the early 1980s, a wave of reform began to impact elementary and secondary education. A Nation at Risk, written in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, was instrumental in drawing attention to shortcomings in the United States education system. Many task forces and commissions were appointed among the states in response to this report, and a variety of changes—such as stiffer high school graduation requirements, increased teacher training, and higher salaries for teachers—were instituted in order to improve the education system (Lewis 1989). These reforms have taken place in response to local or state initiatives. Because the efforts and effects have not been uniform around the country, little comprehensive information is available. However, the information that is available indicates that in a significant number of the states, educational standards have risen as a result of the direct intervention of state legislation.
Since the late 1980s, 18 states have instituted minimum competency testing for graduation. Two additional states plan to begin minimum competency testing in 1997, and three others have indicated to their school districts that minimum competency testing is an option they can consider. In addition, many states have increased the number of courses required for graduation and have given school districts specific instructions on the number of courses that students are required to take in each of the major subject areas (language arts, social studies, mathematics, science, physical education/health, and electives) (USDE 1993b).
More recently, a second movement to reform the education system has focused on restructuring schools by allowing them to use their resources more efficiently. The foundation of this reform movement is the belief that schools will have more incentive to improve if they are given the resources and the autonomy to make decisions themselves (Lewis 1989). As a result, schools have been given more freedom to use their budgets to develop instructional programs appropriate to their needs and have been encouraged to increase the participation of teachers in decisions regarding curriculum and instruction. This latest reform movement has received widespread support from the two main U.S. teachers' unions: the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers (Lewis 1989).
Another interesting development in the education reform movement in the last decade has been the increasing influence of the private sector. To increase the education level and job skills of the general labor market, businesses, industries, and foundations have become involved in innovative school reform programs. Furthermore, businesses have participated in adopt-a-school programs, cooperative programs, and job-training programs, and company representatives have served on task forces and commissions that have made recommendations to the state and local agencies responsible for education reform. Foundations have also played a role in reform by conducting studies and providing resources in support of school reform (Lewis 1989).
Education through the 12th grade is considered a basic right of each individual in the United States, and is in fact required of all individuals between the ages of 6 and 16. At both the elementary and secondary level, education remains free. Equality of access is also an integral feature of the system. Federally funded programs such as Head Start and Title I operate nationwide to provide children from low-income families with the preschool education that will prepare them for elementary school and with additional assistance throughout their early education. Further evidence of the belief that all students should receive equal access to opportunities to learn can be seen in the mainstreaming of both gifted children and children with disabilities. Those who cannot be assimilated into the main classroom usually receive special education within the same school.
Perhaps the most evident characteristic of elementary and secondary education in the United States is its decentralized nature. This decentralized nature of governance allows schools to develop in response to their perceived needs. Individualization and autonomy are both highly valued in the United States, and grassroots representation is also an important part of the United States political system. These values have played an important role in the historical development of the school district as the primary management system for schools.
Although many argue that the quality of education students receive depends on the wealth of the school district they attend, an increase in state regulations and state funding have begun to provide schools in less affluent districts with better guidance and more equitable access to resources. The number of states that provide curricular guidelines, in an effort to increase the uniformity of academic requirements across all school districts within the state, has dramatically increased since the 1980s. In addition, recent reform movements have returned budgetary and instructional decision-making power, once located primarily at the district level, to school administrators and teachers, so that they can make decisions that best serve the populations enrolled in their school.
-###-
[The Educational Structure of the United States School System - References]