American School Systems

Factual Questions
21

Let me throw a bit more complexity into the mix. I graduated from high school in New York City almost 40 years ago. My kids went to school in New Jersey and then California.
When I went, elementary school was K - 6, kindergarten being a half day. Junior High was 7 - 9, and High School was 10 - 12, though they moved 9th grade school about the time I graduated. To add complexity, “honors” students (called SP, or special progress ) had an option of going through junior high in 2 years, and about half of us did that. (Not me.) My high school was very big, about 1500 in my graduating class, and had Honors, Extra Honors, and AP classes. There were a lot fewer AP classes back then than there are now. What HippyHollow said may hold for Texas, but no where I’ve been equates honors students with students going to college. While almost all honors students go to college, lots of non-honors students do also.

In NJ and California we have the traditional K -6, 7-8, and 9 -12 breakdown, though in NJ our district was going to a K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 format. In addition, the NJ district had a “pre-first” program to delay the move from Kindergarten to first grade for a year. This was used for students who were young. We held our daughter, who would have been the youngest back from going to Kindergarten for a year, which worked well. We knew people who put their kids in pre-first, and it worked out great for them.

Many states have exams that you have to pass to graduate now. California allows several tries. They aren’t stressful except for marginal students, as the Regents exams (which took in NY) weren’t stressful either.

As for exams, many seem to be linked to scholarships. There are National Merit exams, and New York had a Regents Scholarship exam which gave you money if you did well enough, but only if you went to college in New York. Most kids take periodic exams for purposes of measuring school progress and for No Child Left Behind.

As for colleges, no private schools are anywhere near open admissions. Most community colleges are. Most states with open admissions have it only for lower tier state schools - the University of California schools like UCLA and Berkeley are by no means open admissions. Even the CSUs require a certain grade level to get in.

22

You are never screwed for life based on what you did for prior academics in the U.S. though. There are always channels to recover if you are motivated enough. My SIL does not have a high school diploma but she does have a reputable degree in chemical engineering and, much later, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is now a full professor. It certainly wasn’t easy and took many, many years but she did it. Likewise, my youngest brother was expelled from high school (can anyone say zero tolerance bullshit with no basis in rationality?) but he now has a reputable college degree that took him 7 years to get but he has it. Even Harvard has an extension program where most anyone can enroll and get a legitimate degree as long as you have the money and the motivation to make it through. These are not cheats. They are legitimate degrees but they require lots of dedication to do it.

23

Absolutely true! My son-in-law went through 5 colleges before getting his degree. It took him a while to mature and throw off the bad example of his family. Each was better than the last, and his grades kept improving. He’s now in law school, and doing very well. My brother wandered through a bunch of schools also.

I think the diversity of colleges in the US really helps those who don’t quite have it together upon high school graduation. Taking time off in the middle happens also.

24

Fascinating! I have to agree with Hello Again, but I believe the difference is mostly in the way I would approach the English and American questions. GorillaMan has a valid point, but I don’t think “identify two…” is a significant simplification. The New York test can be approached as a broad topic requiring a broad range of information and analysis. Not saying it needs that or that is best, but it could be answered that way. So I tend to feel that it is a more challenging test in the sense that I would do well (so I believe) but would have to put a lot of work into it. While the English test seems more like discussing some factoids. HOWEVER, I think that it is more a matter of perception and preparation. If I had been training for weeks/months/years to answer the English test questions, they would get a very reasoned and detailed answer. If I had been training for years to answer the New York question, ditto.

In the end I think these questions are reflections of the educational systems that produced them-not some ideal accomplishment of a quality education. Both England and the United States produce well-educated students. Both countries produce a significant number of poorly educated students. One can measure the quality of an educational system by the number of minimally qualified citizens it produces (ie the system does not give up on many students) or judge it by it’s definition of acceptable qualifications for graduation, or judge it by the number of highly educated students it produces. Or the cost, or the efficiency, or the quality of the football teams, or whatever. On the dope the number of highly educated students produced is a critical measure-but it is only one possible measure.

When comparing educational systems, either within the US or across national boundaries, one needs to define the measure.

BTW, in reference to the exam questions above, I will point out there is a strongly held but by no means universal view that a good test does not measure a threshold, but measures how much the student “knows”. Most tests (ie the US SAT and ACT tests along with virtually all the high school exit exams) use the threshold model. One can see this when one hears about the students who receive a perfect score on one of these tests. The ideal student is supposed to be able to correctly answer all the questions on the test. It is a popular model. Another model, which the proponents feel strongly about, is the level test (made up that term but I do understand how the test works). With this test the questions keep getting harder and no student can possibly answer them all. How far the student gets is a measure of the student’s level. Knowing how the test is designed is an important piece of information for judging the test and the students who take it.

25

That’s not true. Benedict College in South Carolina is private and open enrollment. There are others as well. It’s also important to note that the state colleges are more likely to have a metric cutoff - certain grade point average, certain board scores - for admissions. There’s the issue of being funded by public tax dollars and the need for a transparent admissions process there. But private schools have more leeway and can often admit students with very nontraditional and/or poor academic records without backlash.

26

Oh yeah… edit window closed.

Even Harvard has the Extension School, in which classes are open enrollment. You do have to apply to be admitted, but the criteria is how you perform in the open enrollment courses!

And yes, Chronos, magnet middle and high schools, as well as exam high schools, are often populated solely by honors track students. One has to apply to these schools to attend.