Frequently-asked questions about the US education system dave rusin, rusin@math.niu.edu From time to time I'm asked (with some incredulity, usually) about a peculiar feature of the typical US education. I've assembled short answers to what non-US natives typically want to know. Warning: this is kind of impressionistic. I'd be happy to correct factual errors but you must realize that some of this is pure opinion. Some tables of hard data are at the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q. So what's taught in the US? Q. But surely there are national traditions? Q. What about the calendar? Q. Well of course they study on their own. Doesn't everyone? Q. Oh, but they receive grades at least. Describe the grading procedure. Q. But you still haven't said what they teach in the schools! Q. But curricula must be specified more uniformly than that. How else can graduation exams be set in a reasonable manner? Q. So what happens to students who move from one school to another? How is continuity assured? Q. Gee, don't the students get confused? They're not given very definite goals. Q. Excuse me for saying this, but it doesn't look like the students are held accountable for very much. Q. Aha -- so there are some alternatives to The System in the USA? Q. Why can't the federal government simply impose those standards? Q. Ah yes, money. Education is a big-budget operation, right? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q. So what's taught in the US? A. In one sense the answer is "nothing", that is, there is no single thing which can be assumed to be taught to every US student. This is primarily because of a longstanding American tradition of weak federal control. There is strong resistance to the establishment of national standards or curricula. Almost nothing in this whole document can be assumed to be correct about the whole US; rather, the situation can vary markedly from state to state. To take just one example, the compulsory attendance laws apply to children aged 5-18 in Arkansas but only to ages 8-16 in Arizona. Some of the states do exert a strong central control over the school systems (e.g. there are statewide textbook selection committees in California and statewide exams in New York); others in turn pass the responsibility for oversight to local communities (e.g. in Illinois the state has comparatively little role in elementary education). There are some 15,000 local school districts in the US, each of which has comparative autonomy. Here's a news item demonstrating current US perspective (9/22/97): "Before passing the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, the House overwhelmingly adopted an amendment that would deny all funding to the Department of Education for its efforts to develop 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade mathematics tests. With most Republicans and most members of the Black and Hispanic Caucuses vehemently opposing the tests, the proposal passed easily, 295-125. Rep. Bill Goodling (R-PA), Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, sponsored the amendment and voiced the concerns of many Republicans that national tests, voluntary or not, would lead to a national school curriculum. The Black and Hispanic Caucuses oppose the testing because they believe it would only demonstrate the obvious--that students in poorer schools do worse on standardized exams than students in more affluent areas--and would further stigmatize students from disadvantaged backgrounds." Q. But surely there are national traditions? A. Certainly. Almost every American will recognize this pattern: 1. Every Fall, most of the neighborhood 5-year olds begin a year of Kindergarten. The emphasis is not so much on skills as on socialization. (Every parent waits to hear their child's evaluation: "Plays well with others.") (Some facilities for children _below_ kindergarten age view their mission as schooling (rather than child care); the term "nursery school" or "pre-school" is sometimes used. These are nearly always privately-operated institutions.) 2. Thereafter, children move with their schooling cohort through (usually) eight years of elementary school. Essential academic skills are taught ("Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic") Typically the grades are grouped into schools in all but the smallest cities; for example, there may be a K-6 (kindergarten through 6th grade) school and a 7-8 (or 7-9) school. There is no set usage to the phrases "elementary-" "primary-", "grammar-", "middle-", or "junior-high-school". Grades count upward (so 8th graders are about 13-14 years old). 3. The next four years are "high school", traditionally designated "freshman", "sophomore", "junior", and "senior" years for grades 9-12 respectively. There is some choice in the student's curriculum, and a (usually informal) division into vocational and pre-university students. Education at the K-12 levels is typically organized along city lines, and (especially at the secondary level) is usually overseen by state curricular boards. 4. Later (post-secondary) schooling splits into several paths, all optional. a. A "community college" typically offers vocational training (e.g. a 2-year course of study for automobile mechanics), personal development (e.g. foreign-language courses for adults on weekends) and remedial work (e.g. high-school equivalency for adults who return to an interrupted education; they earn the GED (General Education degree) and are usually then considered high-school graduates). Typical clientele and administration are, say, county-wide. b. A "4-year college" usually shepherds students through a (roughly) 4-year program in some area of specialization (e.g. Chemistry or Nursing) which awards a Bachelor's degree upon completion of a long list of requirements -- courses successfully passed (in and out of the specialization), perhaps an internship or a dissertation, possibly some culminating exams. c. A "university" is not distinctly different but usually offers post-graduate education as well. A Master's degree typically takes 2-3 more years of full time study, requires numerous courses (almost all directly in the field of specialization) and often requires a dissertation. The degree is sometimes closely linked with professional certification. A Doctoral degree (Ph.D.) requires the same plus independent research or creative work, usually several more years of full-time effort beyond the Master's. The medical and legal professions have comparable advanced degrees which should lead to professional certification in those areas. Much post-graduate work is carried out by part-time students who are already holding down a job. Colleges and universities are usually either privately-run (e.g. Harvard) or state-run (e.g. University of [State X]); a substantial number are run by religious organizations. All these schools are called "college". Oversight of each institution is left to whichever unit pays the bills: the state government, the religious organization, or the private institution's own board of trustees. Most of these institutions are "accredited", that is, they subject themselves to a reviewing body which checks to see that the institution has in place some mechanisms to ensure that the faculty are competent, the facilities up to standard, and the graduates are indeed educated. In keeping with the spirit of everything else in this document, the accediting agencies themselves are not uniform! There are several of them operating in different parts of the US. Q. What about the calendar? A. Surprisingly uniform. Everyone, from kindergarten to PhD, seems to follow this pattern: around Labor Day (first week of September), classes begin, run 5 days a week, from fairly early morning (~8am) to early afternoon (~3pm). A student's schedule is usually the same for all 5 days, through high school. There are a number of holidays, including long breaks around Thanksgiving (late November -- usually 2 days off), Christmas (late December -- about 2 weeks off) and in the Spring (usually around a week off). Classes end sometime in June. Total count of school days is around 180/yr. Things are a little more fluid in colleges and universities; the year schedule seems shorter, but there are fewer holidays, and the class day runs longer, even until late evening (or on Saturdays). While students only spend, say, 15 hours/week in class, there is a much greater expectation that they'll study on their own. By the PhD, classes are nearly irrelevant, and independent study runs all day, every day, all year -- at least for the good students. Q. Well of course they study on their own. Doesn't everyone? A. Yes -- now. A decade or two ago homework got a really bad image. (Something about wanting to let students "do their own thing", I guess.) Nowadays the public is receptive to making students work harder at home. Probably around 3rd or 4th grade students begin getting assignments to take home; by the end of elementary school this builds to, oh, an hour a day (with considerable variation; 8th graders often have to learn how to complete a report which takes weeks to finish.) For the most part, homework tends to be pretty routine, all the way through college. In this respect I think American homework is similar to what I've seen elsewhere. One difference is in the expectations of performance however; it seems difficult to force students to complete homework regularly and with care. Q. Oh, but they receive grades at least. Describe the grading procedure. A. Also quite uniform, at least in appearance: letter grades A (high), B, C, and D are used, as well as F (failing), for most schools starting in mid-elementary school and continuing through graduate school. (Young students and PhD students more commonly are noted as making satisfactory progress or not.) By tradition, C is supposed to mean "average performance". In some schools numerical grades are given either instead or in addition (100=high, perhaps 70 the cutoff for passing a course). Typically the grades represent a cumulative measure of work across a semester (about 18 weeks), a quarter (about 9 weeks) or the school year. This grade can be an amalgam of test scores, other graded work, an indication of effort made, or even simply class attendance. Many places grade with optional "+" or "-" in addition to the letter grade; their use is ofter the teacher's option. The grades are usually given per subject, that is, the student will receive a grade for their science course, another for their history course, etc. (Nonacademic subjects such as physical education may be graded "pass" or "fail" in some areas.) Note that receiving an F in a course does not mean the student must retake the course or fail to progress, until the level of high school. (Receiving several F's at once may be reason to give the student some special treatment however.) It must be conceded that grading is a very subjective affair, particularly given the amorphous goals set for the schools. A grade of "B" at one institution may indicate a level of mastery or effort which might get an "D" elsewhere. But usually some sort of consensus is achieved; a student earning mostly B's could move to a new school and would probably still get mostly B's. Grade inflation is common in many colleges, and is also seen in primary and secondary education. (Granted, it does seem a little ludicrous to say that a 1st grader's performance was Unsatisfactory, barring outright insubordination.) This year, one-third of our local high school's students made the Honor Roll (grade average for the semester is B or better), so a C would appear to be a little below the statistical average. Q. But you still haven't said what they teach in the schools! A. Right, and that's largely a result the the tremendous local variation. The primary focus in, say, grades 1-4 is on mastering reading, English grammar, and basic arithmetic. Students usually spend the day with one teacher except for short periods at lunch and recess (free-time). The emphasis in other fields (science, history, etc.) is usually on exposure rather than mastery. Thus the children will take trips to museums, or put on a pageant reflecting some historical event, or play with various percussion instruments. The upper elementary grades see increased expectations in core subject areas. The students may see more teachers per day -- perhaps one for "language arts" (English grammar and Reading [Literature]), one for math and science, and so on. "Gym" ("Physical education") gives organized physical activity and may even require mastery of the rudiments of some sports (this is America after all). In some schools the students get a first exposure to foreign languages (most often Spanish, or French). In some schools there is an organized class for Art or Music. The high schools offer quite a range of courses, not all required. A student may be required to take an English course every year, but that might be US Literature, World literature, or Speech. A student may be required to take several years of math, but that might be remedial math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, or calculus. Other required courses might be US History, or Biology; there are certain to be optional courses as well -- Physics, say, or Economics, or Typing, or Animal Husbandry, or ... There is also an unwritten but important determinant of curriculum in the high schools: college-bound students are encouraged to take courses necessary to enter the colleges of their choice. At some colleges, that may just mean earning a high school diploma, but more selective colleges insist on a good high school preparation. Consequently, college-bound high school students might for example take a schedule involving 4 years of literature, or written and oral communication 3 years of math (e.g. Freshman - algebra, sophomores - geometry juniors - advanced algebra/trigonometry) 2-3 years of sciences (eg. bio, chem, physics) including some which are laboratory-based 2-3 years of social studies (e.g. one semester each of world history, US history, government, economics) 2 years of one foreign language Mandatory courses in physical education (many!), health, civics [government], driver's education, etc. may also be forced. The forward-thinking student will also take a 2-3 year sequence in some elective area (art or orchestra, say, or computers). Many high schools offer courses specifically designed to allow the students to take a test at the end which demonstrates sufficient competence in a subject (e.g. Calculus or French) to receive college credit. High school and junior-high students often have "study halls" -- periods during which their peers may have a course, but they themselves have signed up for one fewer course per day. Use of this period for anything remotely academic is rare. In this way a student may reach the end of four years or high school with anywhere from 40 to 60 distinct one-semester courses. Assuming the required distribution of courses has been passed, students at both extremes will receive a high school diploma. Colleges and universities offer hundreds or thousands of courses; the requirements for a degree may include a few college-wide requirements (e.g. "take one math course") as well as a number of courses designated by the department of specialization. For example, our math students must take a year and a half of calculus, 6 specific higher math courses, 2 additional unspecified math courses, and specified courses in statistics and computer science. Q. But curricula must be specified more uniformly than that. How else can graduation exams be set in a reasonable manner? A. Progress through elementary school and into high school is nearly automatic; there is no need for exams to determine readiness to progress. (There are private schools, particularly high schools, which may set their own entrance exams.) Holding a student back to repeat a grade is rather rare and usually a result of personal problems which are _reflected_ in poor grades, rather than directly _because_ of poor grades. Expulsion from school is also quite rare, and usually a result of discipline problems. Completion of a high school degree is more complicated. The student must successfully complete both a common core of courses and a small number of electives. These are in some cases dictated at the state level. In some areas there are cumulative tests which must be passed at the end of high school to receive the diploma, but it is more common only to be tested one semester at a time on the material taught in each course. There is a kind of substitute national competency test: high-school students desiring admission to selective colleges are usually required by those colleges to submit scores on one of two nationally administered placement exams testing general communication skills and quantitative skills: the SAT and ACT exams (one or the other more common in different geographic areas). The tests are fairly difficult, but there is no "pass" or "fail"; rather, the score becomes a ranking against the national pool of prospective college students. A college may limit admissions to those whose test scores are above a certain percentile. (There is some calibration of test scores between years; a steady decline across decades has prompted widespread concern.) Cumulative exams at the college level are uncommon. You get the degree because you passed the right courses and met a few other requirements. (Passing the course usually involves passing a final exam encompassing all the material in that course during the semester.) At the post-graduate level it is common to have comprehensive written or oral exams which cover great portions of the student's discipline. In academic areas these are almost always created and graded within the institution; in professional areas (e.g. Accountancy) there may be national exams or state exams, which are difficult and lead directly to licensure or professional certification. Q. So what happens to students who move from one school to another? How is continuity assured? A. It's not. Too bad. (This makes it quite possible to miss, say, World Geography if you move, after 7th grade, from a school system which studies it in 8th grade to a school system which studies it in 7th grade!) Well, that's not altogether fair. A tremendous amount of time each year is spent reviewing or repeating old material, particularly in the cumulative disciplines such as the mechanics of mathematics or grammar. Repetition is not a bad thing to reinforce learning, and it does help the student in transition, but it does seem like a pity to waste so much time on old material. One third of Chicago grade-school children changes schools in a year, I'm told. Fortunately there is considerable consistency within the city as to what is to be covered each year. Q. Gee, don't the students get confused? They're not given very definite goals. A. Well, yes, although the typical child (American or otherwise) is not really very attentive to these details. Every junior-high student expects an hour of "Science" every day; whether it's Biology or Earth Sciences or whatever is sort of irrelevant. But yes, the whole system _is_ confusing and irritating to many students. Nowhere would I expect adolescents to be ecstatic about being in school, but the level of tension in some junior-high and high-school classrooms is palpable. Many drop out, particularly in inner-city schools. Enforcing attendance can be difficult with the most hard-core students, particularly those estranged from their families. (In tough neighborhoods, truancy is not seen as the most pressing social problem...) I suppose the main long-term goal for many students is to finish high school. There is no legal requirement that a person graduate from high school. Many jobs, of course, require at least a high-school education (or at least the diploma...) but that's hardly universally true. There is a fair amount of societal pressure to stay in school. For example, it is well known that mean salaries among those with different education levels vary markedly (e.g. holders of a bachelor's degree average 50%-100% higher salaries than those holding a high school degree only.) Data showing the retention of students in schools are shown below. Q. Excuse me for saying this, but it doesn't look like the students are held accountable for very much. A. Yes and no. A typical American student dropped among his or her age-peers in most of Europe would do very poorly (even accounting for the obvious language problem). By the start of his teenage years, an American's exposure to mathematics, for example, has been almost purely computational -- little exposure to geometry, for example, or applications -- and nonetheless the student can't do computations. My guess is that the median US 15-year-old would have difficulty even estimating the square root of 5041, couldn't begin to bisect an angle with ruler and compass, and could not convert 68F to Celsius even if presented with this equation: T = (9/5)*(T ) + 32 F C My experience with French, English, and German students is that these problems would be annoying to many, and difficult for some, but feasible to most of them. Likewise in Geography, the American 15-year-old would have trouble finding India on an unmarked relief globe and couldn't tell you the capital city of Canada. The average 15-year-old has never studied a foreign language, has never studied a musical instrument formally (and probably cannot read music), has difficulty reading English at the level of, say, Newsweek magazine, and could not explain how a light bulb works. None of these individual weaknesses is particularly damning, and none is unique to American students, but taken together they point to a system which allow mediocrity to slip by unchallenged. On the other hand, it's not clear that foreign students would survive in the American schools either. American students are subject to an enormous number of non-academic influences, both positive and negative. For example, the schools are a natural focus of youth activities here, and so schools sponsor many sports teams, a school band, and (especially starting at the high school level) a number of clubs and other activities (e.g. there may be a student government association, a student newspaper, and so on). None of these are recorded as part of the student's academic career, of course. But they count mightily in the student's social circles, with the student's family, and in many cases in the student's long-term development. Also among the positive differences I might include the _lack_ of a demanding curriculum! Given the freedom from academic demands, the talented young mind can turn to whatever topics it finds most interesting. This allows students to work on their own and become ballet stars or computer jocks, to an extent impossible in a world of 8-hour school days all year long. Richard Feynman wrote in his autobiography of his frustration of facing excellent (non-US) physics students who learned everything from a book and hadn't really ever thought to try actually rolling balls around, or perhaps, had never really had the occasion to think in a non-scholastic way. On the other hand, among the negative influences one must concede quite a few hurdles common in the American schools. It's difficult to perform well in school when you can't go to the bathroom because there's too much cigarette smoke there. Schoolyard bullies are very real starting in the youngest grades; by high school, they've become armed gang members. Everywhere the schools must deal with non-English- speaking students, students with learning disabilities, and so on. Among high-school and college students there's a very real need for some to hold down a job while completing school. The temptation to try alcohol or other drugs, or to become sexually active, is very real in the hothouse of today's high school. In the poor inner-city school, precious resources are diverted from adequate books to metal detectors (for screening out weapons); in the rich suburban school it's the resource of time diverted from homework to girl/boy chasing, or fretting over the driver's license and the all-important car. Given the unwillingness of most children to close their eyes to the activities of their peers, it's no wonder that there are so many distractions at school, which can only detract from academic performance. In my experience, this can affect even the best students, all the way through college. Older adolescents, particularly girls, must be quite thick-skinned to push themselves to excel in this environment. In Darwinian fashion, American students have evolved to survive in their ecological niche. Finally, it must be noted that some American students _are_ held accountable to high standards -- either by their teachers, their parents, or themselves -- according to international competitions, college admissions, and the progress of societies. While America may indeed be failing in its responsibility to its average or needy students, some lucky or talented ones will receive an education significantly better than can be found in most other countries. The System may fail us generally, but plenty of students manage to "rise through the cracks". Q. Aha -- so there are some alternatives to The System in the USA? A. Oh yes, definitely. First there are the alternatives available for the individual family. While many students in the primary grades attend the local public (i.e. city-run) school, this is hardly uniformly so. There are privately-run schools all over the country, subject to considerable monitoring in some areas, but nearly independent in others. In some areas, more students attend private schools than public ones. Among the private schools the largest group is the set of schools run by many Roman Catholic parishes (or run by an order of nuns to serve one or more parishes). These parochial schools tend to offer an education with higher standards both of academic performance and of behaviour. In my experience, their superiority tends to be marked in the humanities and weak (or absent) in the sciences and technology, where the lack of public funding for supplies is particularly noticeable. The emphasis on discipline and religious education helps make them popular with some parents and unpopular with many students and some former students. There are also independent private schools, with varying missions, success rates, and long-term histories. If you're willing to look around for them, you can find boarding schools, military schools, Montessori schools, or schools emphasizing some discipline such as foreign languages or business. You can even teach your children at home; again, the regulations circumscribing your regimen can vary from the overwhelming to the nearly nonexistent, depending on the state. In addition to family choice, there is also the prospect of community action. In areas allowing local control of the school curriculum, there are many examples of cities experimenting with various school programs, including reorganizing the school week (away from the prevailing ever-day-the-same-courses model) or the school year (to include more days in class), trying to buy the services of better teachers, or moving to more/fewer options in the school curriculum. It must be noted that some of these reform efforts gain national attention. For example, in recent years some subject areas (including history and mathematics) have attempted to set national standards, and to monitor performance relative to them. At present these "standards" are at best used to evaluate schools rather than individuals, but the situation may evolve in time. Of those students (grades 4 and 8) administered a national standards test in 1996, 62% met or exceeded the proficiency criteria in mathematics; the corresponding figure for reading proficiency in fourth grade was 28% (!). Q. Why can't the federal government simply impose those standards? A. You're new here, aren't you? I should first note that the standards have hardly received universal approbation. The aforementioned standards in history, for example, sustained attacks from both sides while trying to balance the "traditional" topics and perspectives with the "inclusive" ones (e.g. War of 1812: study battles or the contributions of immigrants?); likewise for the balance of specifics vs. broad themes (e.g. test question: "Give dates" or "Discuss."?) Second, there is widespread distrust of the central government's role in education; it's seen as ponderously slow and insensitive to local concerns. _You_ might not think the theory of evolution requires respect of local opinion, but then, you've never tried to recommend books for the state of Texas. Finally, control follows money. The Federal government spends quite a lot of money on education, but it buys studies, and asbestos abatement, and disabilities access, and other big-ticket items. The bread and butter of education, at least at the primary and secondary levels, comes from states and cities. They hire and fire the teachers and buy the books and pencils. Q. Ah yes, money. Education is a big-budget operation, right? A. In toto, yes. Measured per-student or per-teacher, it's not too much. Here the pattern varies with the states. Michigan, for example, has a new goal of funding education statewide (mostly through income taxes). Consequently, the state legislature takes a justifiably big role in setting standards for teacher certification and retention, graduation requirements, and so on. In Illinois, however, recent attempts to do the same have failed miserably. This state pays about a third of the cost of elementary education, leaving the cities to do the rest. (This they must do primarily through real estate taxes, with the result that wealthy suburbs of Chicago outspend poor rural districts by a ratio of several-to-1 on a per-student basis) A few years ago a study was done, computing the _average_ teacher salary in each school district in Illinois. The results varied from $17000/yr to $71000/yr (in two districts within an hour's drive from my home). Clearly the latter school will be able to attract many more prospective teachers than the former, and so will be able to hire (presumably) better ones. How much is it reasonable to expect of the teachers in the poor district? What then is the likely effect on the students' education there? (The 3,200,000 or so K-12 teachers in the US average $38500/year, which is also roughly the median family income in the US.) Public funding for higher education (especially 4-year colleges and universities) is indeed largely from the federal government, if somewhat indirectly through its support for student scholarships and faculty grants; so perhaps it's not surprising that university requirements are rather similar nationwide (at least among large public institutions). Note that the costs of education are primarily borne by the citizenry at large, through various taxes. The family of a student (K-12) at a public institution typically pays almost nothing to the school (perhaps $100/yr), and receives use of the books and some supplies gratis. Private schools of course charge tuition and/or fees for books and so on; this cost can vary from $1000/yr or less to perhaps $5000/yr. (which is about the per-pupil average spending in the public schools.) Families sending their children to private schools continue to pay income and/or real estate taxes to fund the public schools; however, there is considerable public support at present for moves to provide these families with vouchers to defray some of the costs. College costs are to a larger extent the student's (family's) responsibility, although public institutions usually offer tuition rebates (sometimes 100%!) to their residents. The cost of tuition ranges from $2000 or less to $20,000 or more PER YEAR; this is in addition to a room and board charge of perhaps $4000 or $5000 per year for students in dormitories, and costs for books, supplies, and fees -- easily $1000/yr, I would say. Average annual tuition cost (1997) is $3111 for public colleges, $13664 for private ones; the full cost of a year at Harvard and similar prestigious schools now exceeds $30,000/yr. There are significant pools of financial aid available. Much of the aid money is in the form of loans; a 30-something college graduate can often tell tales of huge debt burdens. Those pursuing a postgraduate degree can easy incur 6-digit debts. For comparison: the average salary of a full-time faculty in a 4-year college or university is about $50000 (1997); of course a faculty position requires a Ph.D. or equivalent. Q. The whole thing apparently bugs you, doesn't it Dave? A. Sometimes. I always felt I was getting a fine education as a kid -- I wasn't challenged very much, but that was fine by me. The teachers liked me, the mean kids ignored me. I had time to work on what interested me, and indeed I did work. I was lucky to attend good post-secondary schools, too. It's different having kids in the schools now. There have been plenty of occasions on which I was frustrated by the amount of wasted time in their classes; the preponderance of social and sports and ephemeral activities at their schools; the blunders by their poorly-prepared teachers, or the laziness of their uncaring ones. And I regret the societal problems which have crept into the schools. But on the other hand, they _are_ being taught the most important material, they're worked hard enough to make it sink in, they have plenty of teachers who really like their jobs, so they get that spark of enthusiasm sometimes. As long as the kids will accept some parental involvement in their education, I'm confident The System will work for us. Keep your fingers crossed. Q. Thanks for the answers but I'm not sure I believe all this. A. Well, I said this was all kind of impressionistic. I can supply some raw data courtesy the 1994 Information Please Almanac, the 1998 World Almanac, and the US Dept of Education (www.ed.gov). All data refer to the US. PEOPLE: 10/92 enrollment Grade Public enrollment Private enrollment Kindergarten 3.5M 0.6M Grades 1-8 27.1M 3.1M Grades 9-12 12.2M 0.9M College 11.1M 3.0M 10/1992 dropouts (persons not in school who possess no high school degree) 58000 14-15 year olds (0.8% of that age cohort) had dropped out; 1.4M 22-24 year olds (12.5% of that age cohort) had dropped out. Larger fractions of older cohorts have no high-school degree since near-universal high-school graduation was introduced gradually in the postwar period. 1993 graduations: 3.0M high school and equivalency diplomas 0.5M associate's degrees (2-year program at a community college) 1.2M bachelor's degrees 0.4M masters degrees 75K professional degrees (MD, LLD, DDiv,...) 42K PhD's (There were 3.2M - 3.7M births per year in the early 1970s, which gives an indication of the sizes of the corresponding age cohorts.) As I piece together the data, it appears the following should approximate the highest level of education attained by members of an age cohort (ever in their life): 1% deceased before adulthood 1% did not enter high school 11% entered high school, no diploma 30% high school diploma, no college work 25% some college work, no baccalaureate degree (*) 25% bachelor's degree, no further degree 5% master's degree, no further degree 2% PhD/MD/LLD or equivalent (*) Some 14 million students are currently in college; last year just over a million college degrees were awarded -- about 55% to women. COLLEGE PLACEMENT TESTING: ACT scores are on a scale of 1 - 36 for each of the math and English tests and the composite score. Recent averages were about 21.0; 10% of test-takers score above 27.0, and 26% scored below 18.0. Approximately 1 million students took the test in 1997. SAT scores are on a scale of 200-800 for each of the math and verbal tests. Calibrated in 1941 to a mean of 500, it no longer reflected the mean performance of the larger college-bound crowd by 1995 and was recalibrated. About 2 million students take this test each year, Some students take the ACT and the SAT. Some students take theses tests in more than one year. MONEY: Average annual earnings per person aged 18 or over, 1995: $14,013 among those with no high-school degree 21,431 among those with high school degree only 23,862 among those with some college work 36,980 among those with a Bachelor's degree only 56,667 among holders of an advanced degree 1989-90 funding of public elementary and secondary education: $12,750M federal support (6.1%) [see below for partial breakdown] $98,059M state support (47.2%) $96,773M local support (46.6%) Note that this works out to about $4000 or $5000 spent per pupil per year as a US average; more recent data (1995) reports the spending to be $6K/yr/student, which is $1K/yr/citizen. Average teacher pay is about $38.5K/yr; average student:teacher ratio is about 17:1. FY1994 federal outlays for education -- major programs $7,518M student financial assistance (college) $7,110M educationally disadvantaged students (K-12) $5,647M education for the handicapped $1,573M school improvement programs (K-12) $1,455M vocational and adult education $ 689M school assistance in federally affected areas (K-12) $ 467M education research and improvement $ 231M bilingual education (K-12) $ 84M Indian education (Education outlays total about 2% of the US federal budget) "A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon you're talking real money" -- Sen. Everett Dirksen Additional data can sometimes be sniffed out from http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ Note: a thread on sci.math in June 2002 (Subject: Re: Mathematics in UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa) prompted some international comparisons with actual data and some web sites: " For Ireland, you can find the syllabus for the Leaving Certificate at http://www.irlgov.ie/educ/generalpolicy/second%20level%20toc.htm#Leaving " "Each state and sometimes each school has its own standards for what is covered in the courses, but the textbook-publishing industry tends to encourage some amount of standardization of the syllabus in order to allow existing textbooks to be used. The State of Virginia has some of the tougher standards for math education in the US. The following pages show the state standards for all grade levels, with links to the standards for each course listed in the order taught (there is some overlap when two courses are combined into a single year), as some schools do. http://www.knowledge.state.va.us/main/sol/solview.cfm?curriculum_abb=MAT "