essay about the public school system

Essay on the American Public-School System

Education to the public is an essential element to society and a flourishing democracy of a given country. In the United States, education in public schools started taking place in the 17 th century. It was by the first settlers who stepped on the United States soil. In today’s setting, the American public school system is more complex with tiered forms of government and many diversified programs to address the diversifying needs of students. It’s essential to understand the definition, structures, purpose, policies, and operation of public schools in the United States. The understanding helps create a broader picture of what public education is about in the country and how it looks. Public schools are referred to as primary or secondary schools, which are available and can be accessed by everyone in the country. The schools are run, controlled, and regulated by the government’s authority. The government also influences attendance, and funding is by the government mainly through taxes. The funding money is usually allocated through ministries or departments designed to oversee the proper functioning of the public school system.

In the United States, the public school system has a basis on three tiers form of governance entitled to oversee the running of general education. They include the federals, the states, and the local levels. At the top level of the federal government (Diperna et al., 12). The education system has been overseen by the education secretary in the Department of Education. Where the president appoints the minister, the department creates policies and laws involving the education sector in the United States. In the state, there are education agencies that play a vital role in governing public schools. The elected school board runs individual school districts at the local level in most instances. They also offer their insight into public education as well (Jackson 6). There are approximately 15,000 districts schools that are operational in the US. However, alternative schools such as charter and magnet schools allow parents to take their children to school outside their immediate neighborhoods school. Many districts school usually have open enrollments that will enable parents to choose the best public schools for their children depending on their specific needs.

According to staff works in the United States during the 20007-2008 academic year, approximately 49 million taught in schools. The approximate number of teachers was about 3 million in both primary and secondary schools in the whole country (Morris 10). The average amount of funding per student was about $9,600. However, there was a significant variation in the number between state and districts school. The majority of the financing of these schools is from property taxes, and it is possible to determine the amount each school will receive depending on the location. The district’s schools also receive funding from state and federal sources.

The Education System Set-Up

The compulsory entry age to education in the United States varies according to a different state. The period is between 5 and 7 years, while the age of 6 is the most common in many forms. The compulsory age at which education is completed varies between 16 and 18, but the most common age is 16. School in the US does not end until 18 or upon completion of 12 years (Fuller et al., 10). Those that leave school after completing the compulsory years without earning a higher diploma do not get any certificate of recognition. These students are regarded as high or secondary schools drop out hence not honored. Some students may graduate one year earlier or later, depending on when they enroll in their education. For student talented in education, they can graduate earlier simply because they skipped some classes. Students who are not gifted may delay finishing because they might have forced to repeat courses. The school years in the United States are usually referred to as grades.

Each state in the US usually determines what kind of grade range will constitute the primary school education known as elementary education. Depending on the length of the elementary education, it may be followed by some years of middle school education. The number of middle school education is mostly three years. Secondary education occurs in grade 7 to grade 12 but depends on laws and policies established by the state or the local district school. Any national laws do not govern the educational system in the US. All rules are made and enacted by all states (50) together with 14,000 schools located in local districts. They formulate policies and follow and enforce them to; oversee the public education system (Synder et al., 70). Graduation has been set in all schools at state and local districts for students who complete the 12 th grade. This type of graduation upon completion of secondary school education has referred to as a higher diploma. The diploma usually carries cover names and some rewards for various curriculum and standards set. There are honors, college preparatory, and general high school diplomas. To achieve the available track, they must meet the minimum state course requirements and other graduation requirements (Kreisman et al., 11). Vocational and academic or honors require the student to complete an extra set of different curricula to achieve.

High school now and before set up for college

Many districts allow students to enroll in an advanced placement program on the college governance board. The program enables the student to enroll in college-level introductory courses where qualified lectures teach them. After three years examinations are offered in every approach taken, and student who qualifies have given university awarding. Currently, there are about 35 types of this program in use, and more are has planned. Another number of students have been offered the International Baccalaureate (AB), an optional award (Liu 14). To achieve this track, they must study an additional semester beyond the required 12 years—individual students’ programs and content in every grade or the diploma and online degree. They are usually contained in a record known as a transcript. These are the official documents of proof of education, and they include the school seal and signature from the academic registrar.

High school education in the US has two levels, junior high school, and senior high school. The middle schools contain grades seven and grade 8; sometimes, they may contain grades 5, 6, and 9 depending on the state. Upon arriving in junior secondary, students enroll in class schedules to take eight classes from different teachers. The classes are most set to four core academic classes or five if there is a foreign language. These four classes include language, mathematics, science, and option between history and social studies. In some schools, foreign languages have taken place. Students who complete junior high school enroll for high school. Students in high school are from grade 8, 9, or 10 up to grade 12. The majorities of high schools in the united school are comprehensive and accept all students from their local areas regardless of their track.

Rules of Getting into Big Schools like the Ivy League

Many students in the United States dream of attending any of the colleges in the Ivy League to undertake their undergraduate education. Which they regard to be the most elite league. There are eight kinds of these colleges in the US, and achieving student enrollment has been very difficult. Princeton University ranked first position in this diamond league. The rate of student admission into Ivy College declined by approximately 8% in 2020. Students who apply early in the Ivy College are usually admitted than students who regularly use (Nikolsaka 2). Students with early applications have more competitive advantages than students who have applied lately. The pools of early applications that are selected tend to have a proportion of higher talent. However, it does not include any automatic advantage in selection. Each ivy college usually has early applications for interested candidates and encourages selected candidates to attend if they are chosen. However, some colleges in this league, like Harvard University, encourage students to apply to other colleges if admitted early.

Most of the colleges in the Ivy League provided information to the US news regarding their early acceptance rates; this rate was shorter than the regular accepted rate. For example, the student who had applied earlier for Columbia University was more by three times than who had applied lately. According to the university admission website, the difference was due to confident students who are well qualified used earlier. Applying students must have high test scores or good grades to land a spot at any college found in the Ivy League. In 2020 the early acceptance rate provided by Ivy League colleges supplied to the US news was approximately 18% (Landers 10). The rate for universities that are not in Ivy League is approximate 55%. Every college in Ivy League provides information to the US news regarding the performance of SAT scores for their freshmen except for Columbia.

The Stress and Work of Getting to these Schools

Every student who wishes to apply for college in this league should understand that admission criteria have based on academic performance, like test scores and other important factors. The decisions focus on a critical analysis of both qualitative and quantitative factors (Ornsten 335). Some elements like recommendation letters from former institutions, extra curriculum activities that students are involved in, and application essays have consideration when making admission decisions. Additionally, the Ivy Colleges look for students from remote areas, those with less presented ethnic backgrounds, who grew up in a low social, economic environment, and extreme special needs. Because the Ivy Schools usually look for what they don’t have. They aim to look for minority groups who have previously have overlooked in the current world setting.

To maintain good touch with alumni, Ivy Colleges Schools prefers to admit a student who has close connections with the schools. They select students with family connections to school compared to students with similar qualifications but have no ant attachments (Aydin et al., 76). Ivy Colleges consider the gender balance of the applicant and strive to ensure that no gender dominates the other. As a result, the applicant’s gender can affect their pick in the schools, especially if their preferred field has notable gender skew. An outsider finds it difficult to note these priorities, and they may feel that the whole system has collapsed. According to experts, an applicant with an excellent performance record has a great set of talents and won much competition finds a better priority of admission to the Ivy School League. Ivy schools usually have high competitors for seats, and a student who completes every optional component in the application demonstrates high interest in the school. Applicants who wish to gain admission to this school are encouraged that there is nothing optional. They should fill in all the optional requirements, either essays or interviews. Successful students in the application usually have enough reasons for how excellent the college is, even what those colleges don’t know.

Ivy League Colleges are challenging to reach for many students, even those with good grades and justifiable test scores. Experts have warned students from putting great hope in them. Students who have performed brilliantly in their high school levels may benefit more by overlooking these colleges. They should focus more on other selective colleges that may match their interests. Many other high-rated colleges are not in the Ivy College, but they exhibit outstanding features. Students can enroll in these colleges and live happily and get excellent performance in their education and end up in very successful careers even better than students of Ivy College.

College Life and how to Maintain the Balance of Life and School

For students to perform better, they have to optimize their role in suitable ways-it is crucial for students to find a balance in their role in daily life. Students usually wear a hat of different functions such as; partner, student, family, worker, and schoolmate. Times for these are often in conflict, and students should adopt proper strategies to attend all of them (Herman 22). Students should have a school-life balance to achieve excellent academic results. Usually, students mostly give education priority compared to personal factors like exercise and leisure. This action may reduce performance level as the body’s fitness and good health are not considered. Also, the nature of one relationship can impact performance. Too much focus on education can as well impact personal relationships reducing support. Also, paying more attention to personal relationships can deteriorate one academic performance. The student should look for measures so that they can have a balanced school-life relationship.

Students succeeding in their academics means focusing more on studies; most of what is achieved on graduation does not come from class but from student research. Other activities like attachments, internships, fieldwork, conferences, etc., also contribute to excellent performance. These all activities require extra time other than class time to achieve them. Factors that will enable students to sacrifice a lot of time are; self-motivation, good time management, prioritization, and good self-discipline. Good time management is essential for academic success and requires various skills that enable students to have better concentration;

Good schedule plan by the student
Make a weekly list of things to do
Good work prioritization
Ability to break a large number of tasks into small ones that can be handled easily
Estimating goals to be achieved within a specific timeline
Trying to avoid being perfect
Accessing the time wasted and making recovery plans

Students should be aware of too much stress that makes them not focus on what needs to be done. Students who have less stress are usually motivated to study and complete their projects on time. When stress becomes too much in such a way, it surpasses motivation student experiences stress overload. Students who have stress overload have anxiety and panic attacks (Rawal 12). These students often feel pressured, lessened, and hurried by life activities, making them more irritable and moody. Stress overload has physical symptoms like stomach aches, headaches, or even body pains. Students with stress should carry activities to relieve stress like exercise, recreation, laughing, increasing vitamin D, positive self-talk, believing they can handle it, talking to friends, seeking help, etc.

In addition, students should strive to achieve high goals other than perfectionism; perfectionism makes students have thoughts and behaviors that aim to reach unrealistic goals. These self-defeating thoughts are perceived to a certain standard level of excellence triggered by one need for approval. The student should strive to achieve what they can through;

The setting standard that is high but is realistic to achieve

Enjoying the whole process of study not only the outcomes

By monitoring their positive and negative thoughts

Taking mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning

Reacting positively to constructive feedback

Maintaining a good healthy lifestyle

Ability to manage the conflicting demands from work, family school

Impact of Essay and the Message to the Public.

The importance of public education is regarded as one of the most critical things in the education system today. At first, public schools in the United States were formed to express democracy, and it’s still the greatest example even today. Education is incorporated to ensure all persons participate in democracy by providing the majority of the people contribute to the system. Citizens require having core knowledge and skills that will make them active and productive to the democracy in a social setting. For this process to be successful, members of the society should have a good education system giving birth to the public school system (Damron 9). The education system in the United States provides for free access to education for all its citizens. The department of education in the United States offers equal opportunities to education even to persons living with disabilities. The federal law in the US requires students with both physical and mental issues to receive appropriate instruction in line with their specific needs. The same case applies to students of all races and gender regarding their income status. The US does not restrict citizens from obtaining public education that can make them successful in their lives.

Students and University; bad and good Changes to the Public School System

At the university level, the first stage is the associate degree, then the bachelor’s degree, followed by an advanced certificate and first professional degree. In the United States, the first degree to achieve after completing high school is an associate degree designed to take two years or more. Holders of this award can apply for bachelor’s degree programs but cannot directly apply to advanced certificates.

Some of the best changes introduced to the public education system include; provisions of tutors to students who usually perform below average to boost performance (Harashchenko et al., 1). It should take place through national programs, fellowships, volunteers, etc. Another measure is offering free meals, i.e., breakfast and lunch, to students, disregarding their income level. Also, allowing the student to combine college education with technical training in various workplace settings. It makes them incorporate all the learned skills in the classroom. Finally, the reduction of class hours from nine to less than seven best fits parents’ needs.

The bad assumption introduced in the public school system is that people with higher education usually enjoy high social class, great power, prestige, and a higher income level. It has made many people strive to achieve higher education levels disregarding other important things that could make them successful. When such persons fail to achieve the targeted groups, they become frustrated with life and engage in awful acts to counter frustrations. Another issue is the high drop rate of school by minority students. It can be attributed to an increase in tuition fees for public schools.

The United States education system is formed based on a complex structure to accommodate various student needs. Education is governed by three levels; federal, state, and district level. The set-up of the education system is from elementary education to junior level secondary, after the junior class to high school level from where students qualify to study in higher institutions. There are also some set rules for the student to be eligible for Ivy College schools. These rules are accompanied by a lot of work and stress towards achieving the requirements. Students should also have better measures to maintain between life and school. A good balance between life and school ensures a successful life. Public education has great importance to citizens as they learn the role of education in democracy. Another important thing is that public education has taken both positive and negative changes since its introduction.

Aydin, Hasan, Burhan Ozfidan, and Douglas Carothers. “Meeting the challenges of curriculum and instruction in school settings in the United States.” Journal of Social Studies Education Research 8.3 (2017): 76-92.

Damron, Aryssa. “The Path to the Ivy League Leads Straight through the Public Library.” Hope and a Future: Perspectives on the Impact that Librarians and Libraries Have on our World. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021.

DiPerna, Paul, and Michael Shaw. “2018 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Parent and Teacher Experiences, Accountability, and School Choice.” EdChoice (2018).

Fuller, J., Rachel Lipson, and Jo Encinas. “Working to Learn: Despite a growing set of innovators, America struggles to connect education and career.” (2021).

Harashchenko, Larysa, et al. “Models of corporate education in the United States of America.” Journal of Entrepreneurship Education 22.3 (2019): 1-6.

Herman, Katya M., and Richard Larouche. “Active commuting to work or school: Associations with subjective well-being and work-life balance.” Journal of Transport & Health 22 (2021): 101118.

Jackson, Samantha N. “Standardizing America: Why it Should Be a Method of the Past.” OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal 8.1 (2021): 6.

Kreisman, Daniel, and Kevin Stange. “Vocational and career tech education in American high schools: The value of depth over breadth.” Education Finance and Policy 15.1 (2020): 11-44.

Landers, Kerry H. “POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION FOR FIRST-GENERATION AND LOW-INCOME STUDENTS IN THE IVY LEAGUE.” (2019).

Liu, Changming. “Research on the Educational Mechanism of Donation Culture and Architectural Culture in American Ivy League School.” (2018).

Morris, Robin A. “Running heading: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA AND AMERICA.” Fuller, J., Rachel Lipson, and Jo Encinas. ”

Nikolska, Nina. “SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE USA: THE RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSES OF LEGISLATION.” Studies in Comparative Education 2 (2020).

Ornstein, Allan. “Wealth, legacy and college admission.” Society 56.4 (2019): 335-339.

Rawal, Debyani Mukherjee. “Work-life balance among female school teachers [k-12] delivering online curriculum in Noida [India] during COVID: Empirical study.” Management in Education (2021): 0892020621994303.

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Americans Have Given Up on Public Schools. That’s a Mistake.

The current debate over public education underestimates its value—and forgets its purpose.

Public schools have always occupied prime space in the excitable American imagination. For decades, if not centuries, politicians have made hay of their supposed failures and extortions. In 2004, Rod Paige, then George W. Bush’s secretary of education, called the country’s leading teachers union a “terrorist organization.” In his first education speech as president, in 2009, Barack Obama lamented the fact that “despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we’ve let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us.”

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President Donald Trump used the occasion of his inaugural address to bemoan the way “beautiful” students had been “deprived of all knowledge” by our nation’s cash-guzzling schools. Educators have since recoiled at the Trump administration’s budget proposal detailing more than $9 billion in education cuts, including to after-school programs that serve mostly poor children. These cuts came along with increased funding for school-privatization efforts such as vouchers. Our secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, has repeatedly signaled her support for school choice and privatization, as well as her scorn for public schools, describing them as a “dead end” and claiming that unionized teachers “care more about a system, one that was created in the 1800s, than they care about individual students.”

Few people care more about individual students than public-school teachers do, but what’s really missing in this dystopian narrative is a hearty helping of reality: 21st-century public schools, with their record numbers of graduates and expanded missions, are nothing close to the cesspools portrayed by political hyperbole. This hyperbole was not invented by Trump or DeVos, but their words and proposals have brought to a boil something that’s been simmering for a while—the denigration of our public schools, and a growing neglect of their role as an incubator of citizens.

Americans have in recent decades come to talk about education less as a public good, like a strong military or a noncorrupt judiciary, than as a private consumable. In an address to the Brookings Institution, DeVos described school choice as “a fundamental right.” That sounds appealing. Who wouldn’t want to deploy their tax dollars with greater specificity? Imagine purchasing a gym membership with funds normally allocated to the upkeep of a park.

My point here is not to debate the effect of school choice on individual outcomes: The evidence is mixed, and subject to cherry-picking on all sides. I am more concerned with how the current discussion has ignored public schools’ victories, while also detracting from their civic role. Our public-education system is about much more than personal achievement; it is about preparing people to work together to advance not just themselves but society. Unfortunately, the current debate’s focus on individual rights and choices has distracted many politicians and policy makers from a key stakeholder: our nation as a whole. As a result, a cynicism has taken root that suggests there is no hope for public education. This is demonstrably false. It’s also dangerous.

The idea that popular education might best be achieved privately is nothing new, of course. The Puritans, who saw education as necessary to Christian practice, experimented with the idea, and their experience is telling. In 1642, they passed a law—the first of its kind in North America—requiring that all children in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts receive an education. Puritan legislators assumed, naively, that parents would teach children in their homes; however, many of them proved unable or unwilling to rise to the task. Five years later, the legislators issued a corrective in the form of the Old Deluder Satan Law: “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,” the law intoned, “it is therefore ordered … that everie Township [of 100 households or more] in this Jurisdiction” be required to provide a trained teacher and a grammar school, at taxpayer expense.

Almost 400 years later, contempt for our public schools is commonplace. Americans, and especially Republicans, report that they have lost faith in the system, but notably, nearly three-quarters of parents rate their own child’s school highly; it’s other people’s schools they worry about. Meanwhile, Americans tend to exaggerate our system’s former glory. Even in the 1960s, when international science and math tests were first administered, the U.S. was never at the top of the rankings and was often near the bottom.

Not only is the idea that American test scores were once higher a fiction, but in some cases they have actually improved over time, especially among African American students. Since the early 1970s, when the Department of Education began collecting long-term data, average reading and math scores for 9- and 13-year-olds have risen significantly.

These gains have come even as the student body of American public schools has expanded to include students with ever greater challenges. For the first time in recent memory, a majority of U.S. public-school students come from low-income households. The student body includes a larger proportion than ever of students who are still learning to speak English. And it includes many students with disabilities who would have been shut out of public school before passage of the 1975 law now known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which guaranteed all children a “free appropriate public education.”

The fantasy that in some bygone era U.S. test scores were higher has prevented us from acknowledging other possible explanations for America’s technological, scientific, and cultural preeminence. In her 2013 book, Reign of Error , Diane Ravitch—an education historian and former federal education official who originally supported but later became a critic of reforms like No Child Left Behind—cites surprising evidence that a nation’s higher position on an international ranking of test scores actually predicted lower per capita GDP decades later, compared with countries whose test scores ranked worse. Other findings complicate the picture, but at a minimum we can say that there is no clear connection between test scores and a nation’s economic success. Surely it’s reasonable to ask whether some of America’s success might derive not from factors measured by standardized tests, but from other attributes of our educational system. U.S. public schools, at their best, have encouraged a unique mixing of diverse people, and produced an exceptionally innovative and industrious citizenry.

Our lost faith in public education has led us to other false conclusions, including the conviction that teachers unions protect “bad apples.” Thanks to articles and documentaries such as Waiting for “Superman , ” most of us have an image seared into our brain of a slew of know-nothing teachers, removed from the classroom after years of sleeping through class, sitting in state-funded “rubber rooms” while continuing to draw hefty salaries. If it weren’t for those damned unions, or so the logic goes, we could drain the dregs and hire real teachers. I am a public-school-certified teacher whose own children attended public schools, and I’ve occasionally entertained these thoughts myself.

But unions are not the bogeyman we’re looking for. According to “The Myth of Unions’ Overprotection of Bad Teachers,” a well-designed study by Eunice S. Han, an economist at the University of Utah, school districts with strong unions actually do a better job of weeding out bad teachers and retaining good ones than do those with weak unions. This makes sense. If you have to pay more for something, you are more likely to care about its quality; when districts pay higher wages, they have more incentive to employ good teachers (and dispense with bad ones). And indeed, many of the states with the best schools have reached that position in the company of strong unions. We can’t say for sure that unions have a positive impact on student outcomes—the evidence is inconclusive. But findings like Han’s certainly undermine reformers’ claims.

In defending our public schools, I do not mean to say they can’t be improved. But if we are serious about advancing them, we need to stop scapegoating unions and take steps to increase and improve the teaching pool. Teacher shortages are leaving many states in dire straits: The national shortfall is projected to exceed 100,000 teachers by next year.

That many top college graduates hesitate to join a profession with low wages is no great surprise. For many years, talented women had few career alternatives to nursing and teaching; this kept teacher quality artificially high. Now that women have more options, if we want to attract strong teachers, we need to pay competitive salaries. As one observer put it, if you cannot find someone to sell you a Lexus for a few dollars, that doesn’t mean there is a car shortage.

Oddly, the idea of addressing our supply-and-demand problem the old-fashioned American way, with a market-based approach, has been largely unappealing to otherwise free-market thinkers. And yet raising salaries would have cascading benefits beyond easing the teacher shortage. Because salaries are associated with teacher quality, raising pay would likely improve student outcomes. Massachusetts and Connecticut have attracted capable people to the field with competitive pay, and neither has an overall teacher shortage.

Apart from raising teacher pay, we should expand the use of other strategies to attract talent, such as forgivable tuition loans, service fellowships, hardship pay for the most-challenging settings (an approach that works well in the military and the foreign service), and housing and child-care subsidies for teachers, many of whom can’t afford to live in the communities in which they teach. We can also get more serious about de-larding a bureaucracy that critics are right to denounce: American public schools are bloated at the top of the organizational pyramid, with too many administrators and not enough high-quality teachers in the classroom.

Where schools are struggling today, collectively speaking, is less in their transmission of mathematical principles or writing skills, and more in their inculcation of what it means to be an American. The Founding Fathers understood the educational prerequisites on which our democracy was based (having themselves designed it), and they had far grander plans than, say, beating the Soviets to the moon, or ensuring a literate workforce.

Thomas Jefferson, among other historical titans, understood that a functioning democracy required an educated citizenry, and crucially, he saw education as a public good to be included in the “articles of public care,” despite his preference for the private sector in most matters. John Adams, another proponent of public schooling, urged, “There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the expense of the people themselves.”

In the centuries since, the courts have regularly affirmed the special status of public schools as a cornerstone of the American democratic project. In its vigorous defenses of students’ civil liberties—to protest the Vietnam War, for example, or not to salute the flag—the Supreme Court has repeatedly held public schools to an especially high standard precisely because they play a unique role in fostering citizens.

This role isn’t limited to civics instruction; public schools also provide students with crucial exposure to people of different backgrounds and perspectives. Americans have a closer relationship with the public-school system than with any other shared institution. (Those on the right who disparagingly refer to public schools as “government schools” have obviously never been to a school-board meeting, one of the clearest examples anywhere of direct democracy in action.) Ravitch writes that “one of the greatest glories of the public school was its success in Americanizing immigrants.” At their best, public schools did even more than that, integrating both immigrants and American-born students from a range of backgrounds into one citizenry.

At a moment when our media preferences, political affiliations, and cultural tastes seem wider apart than ever, abandoning this amalgamating function is a bona fide threat to our future. And yet we seem to be headed in just that direction. The story of American public education has generally been one of continuing progress, as girls, children of color, and children with disabilities (among others) have redeemed their constitutional right to push through the schoolhouse gate. But in the past few decades, we have allowed schools to grow more segregated, racially and socioeconomically. (Charter schools, far from a solution to this problem, are even more racially segregated than traditional public schools.)

Simultaneously, we have neglected instruction on democracy. Until the 1960s, U.S. high schools commonly offered three classes to prepare students for their roles as citizens: Government, Civics (which concerned the rights and responsibilities of citizens), and Problems of Democracy (which included discussions of policy issues and current events). Today, schools are more likely to offer a single course. Civics education has fallen out of favor partly as a result of changing political sentiment. Some liberals have come to see instruction in American values—such as freedom of speech and religion, and the idea of a “melting pot”—as reactionary. Some conservatives, meanwhile, have complained of a progressive bias in civics education.

Especially since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the class time devoted to social studies has declined steeply. Most state assessments don’t cover civics material, and in too many cases, if it isn’t tested, it isn’t taught. At the elementary-school level, less than 40 percent of fourth-grade teachers say they regularly emphasize topics related to civics education.

So what happens when we neglect the public purpose of our publicly funded schools? The discussion of vouchers and charter schools, in its focus on individual rights, has failed to take into account American society at large. The costs of abandoning an institution designed to bind, not divide, our citizenry are high.

Already, some experts have noted a conspicuous link between the decline of civics education and young adults’ dismal voting rates. Civics knowledge is in an alarming state: Three-quarters of Americans can’t identify the three branches of government. Public-opinion polls, meanwhile, show a new tolerance for authoritarianism, and rising levels of antidemocratic and illiberal thinking. These views are found all over the ideological map, from President Trump, who recently urged the nation’s police officers to rough up criminal suspects, to, ironically, the protesters who tried to block DeVos from entering a Washington, D.C., public school in February.

We ignore public schools’ civic and integrative functions at our peril. To revive them will require good faith across the political spectrum. Those who are suspicious of public displays of national unity may need to rethink their aversion. When we neglect schools’ nation-binding role, it grows hard to explain why we need public schools at all. Liberals must also work to better understand the appeal of school choice, especially for families in poor areas where teacher quality and attrition are serious problems. Conservatives and libertarians, for their part, need to muster more generosity toward the institutions that have educated our workforce and fueled our success for centuries.

The political theorist Benjamin Barber warned in 2004 that “America as a commercial society of individual consumers may survive the destruction of public schooling. America as a democratic republic cannot.” In this era of growing fragmentation, we urgently need a renewed commitment to the idea that public education is a worthy investment, one that pays dividends not only to individual families but to our society as a whole.

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

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Paul R. Fossum 3

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

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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.

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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.

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Rebecca winthrop and rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop the hon. minister david sengeh 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 @dsengeh.

June 23, 2022

Today, the topic of education system transformation is front of mind for many leaders. Ministers of education around the world are seeking to build back better as they emerge from COVID-19-school closures to a new normal of living with a pandemic. The U.N. secretary general is convening the Transforming Education Summit (TES) at this year’s general assembly meeting (United Nations, n.d.). Students around the world continue to demand transformation on climate and not finding voice to do this through their schools are regularly leaving class to test out their civic action skills.

It is with this moment in mind that we have developed this shared vision of education system transformation. Collectively we offer insights on transformation from the perspective of a global think tank and a national government: the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings brings years of global research on education change and transformation, and the Ministry of Education of Sierra Leone brings on-the-ground lessons from designing and implementing system-wide educational rebuilding.

This brief is for any education leader or stakeholder who is interested in charting a transformation journey in their country or education jurisdiction such as a state or district. It is also for civil society organizations, funders, researchers, and anyone interested in the topic of national development through education. In it, we answer the following three questions and argue for a participatory approach to transformation:

Why is education system transformation urgent now? We argue that the world is at an inflection point. Climate change, the changing nature of work, increasing conflict and authoritarianism together with the urgency of COVID recovery has made the transformation agenda more critical than ever.
What is education system transformation? We argue that education system transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of your system – are they meeting the moment that we are in, are they tackling inequality and building resilience for a changing world, are they fully context aware, are they owned broadly across society – and then fundamentally positioning all components of your education system to coherently contribute to this shared purpose.
How can education system transformation advance in your country or jurisdiction? We argue that three steps are crucial: Purpose (developing a broadly shared vision and purpose), Pedagogy (redesigning the pedagogical core), and Position (positioning and aligning all components of the system to support the pedagogical core and purpose). Deep engagement of educators, families, communities, students, ministry staff, and partners is essential across each of these “3 P” steps.

Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality

By Keith Meatto

May 2, 2019

Racial segregation in public education has been illegal for 65 years in the United States. Yet American public schools remain largely separate and unequal — with profound consequences for students, especially students of color.

Today’s teachers and students should know that the Supreme Court declared racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional in the landmark 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education . Perhaps less well known is the extent to which American schools are still segregated. According to a recent Times article , “More than half of the nation’s schoolchildren are in racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite.” In addition, school districts are often segregated by income. The nexus of racial and economic segregation has intensified educational gaps between rich and poor students, and between white students and students of color.

Although many students learn about the historical struggles to desegregate schools in the civil rights era, segregation as a current reality is largely absent from the curriculum.

“No one is really talking about school segregation anymore,” Elise C. Boddie and Dennis D. Parker wrote in this 2018 Op-Ed essay. “That’s a shame because an abundance of research shows that integration is still one of the most effective tools that we have for achieving racial equity.”

The teaching activities below, written directly to students, use recent Times articles as a way to grapple with segregation and educational inequality in the present. This resource considers three essential questions:

• How and why are schools still segregated in 2019? • What repercussions do segregated schools have for students and society? • What are potential remedies to address school segregation?

School segregation and educational inequity may be a sensitive and uncomfortable topic for students and teachers, regardless of their race, ethnicity or economic status. Nevertheless, the topics below offer entry points to an essential conversation, one that affects every American student and raises questions about core American ideals of equality and fairness.

Six Activities for Students to Investigate School Segregation and Educational Inequality

Activity #1: Warm-Up: Visualize segregation and inequality in education.

Based on civil rights data released by the United States Department of Education, the nonprofit news organization ProPublica has built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. In this activity, which might begin a deeper study of school segregation, you can look up your own school district, or individual public or charter school, to see how it compares with its counterparts.

To get started: Scroll down to the interactive map of the United States in this ProPublica database and then answer the following questions:

1. Click the tabs “Opportunity,” “Discipline,” “Segregation” and “Achievement Gap” and answer these two simple questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder? (These are the same questions we ask as part of our “ What’s Going On in This Graph? ” weekly discussions.) 2. Next, click the tabs “Black” and “Hispanic.” What do you notice? What do you wonder? 3. Search for your school or district in the database. What do you notice in the results? What questions do you have?

For Further Exploration

Research your own school district. Then write an essay, create an oral presentation or make an annotated map on segregation and educational inequity in your community, using data from the Miseducation database.

Activity #2: Explore a case study: schools in Charlottesville, Va.

The New York Times and ProPublica investigated how segregation still plays a role in shaping students’ educational experiences in the small Virginia city of Charlottesville. The article begins:

Zyahna Bryant and Trinity Hughes, high school seniors, have been friends since they were 6, raised by blue-collar families in this affluent college town. They played on the same T-ball and softball teams, and were in the same church group. But like many African-American children in Charlottesville, Trinity lived on the south side of town and went to a predominantly black neighborhood elementary school. Zyahna lived across the train tracks, on the north side, and was zoned to a mostly white school, near the University of Virginia campus, that boasts the city’s highest reading scores.

Before you read the rest of the article, and learn about the experiences of Zyahna and Trinity, answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions:

• What is the purpose of public education? • Do all children in America receive the same quality of education? • Is receiving a quality public education a right (for everyone) or a privilege (for some)? • Is there a correlation between students’ race and the quality of education they receive?

Now read the entire article about lingering segregation in Charlottesville and answer the following questions:

1. How is Charlottesville’s school district geographically and racially segregated? 2. How is Charlottesville a microcosm of education in America? 3. How do white and black students in Charlottesville compare in terms of participation in gifted and talented programs; being held back a grade; being suspended from school? 4. How do black and white students in Charlottesville compare in terms of reading at grade level? 5. How do Charlottesville school officials explain the disparities between white and black students? 6. Why are achievement disparities so common in college towns? 7. In what ways do socioeconomics not fully explain the gap between white and black students?

After reading the article and answering the above questions, share your reactions using the following prompts:

• Did anything in the article surprise you? Shock you? Make you angry or sad? Why? • On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain. • How might education in Charlottesville be made more equitable?

Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate school segregation in the United States and around the world.

1. Read and discuss “ In a Divided Bosnia, Segregated Schools Persist .” Compare and contrast the situations in Bosnia and Charlottesville. How does this perspective confirm, challenge, or complicate your understanding of the topic?

2. Read and discuss the article and study the map and graphs in “ Why Are New York’s Schools Segregated? It’s Not as Simple as Housing .” How does “school choice” confirm, challenge or complicate your understanding of segregation and educational inequity?

3. Only a tiny number of black students were offered admission to the highly selective public high schools in New York City in 2019, raising the pressure on officials to confront the decades-old challenge of integrating New York’s elite public schools. To learn more about this story, listen to this episode of The Daily . For more information, read these Op-Ed essays and editorials offering different perspectives on the problem and possible solutions. Then, make a case for what should be done — or not done — to make New York’s elite public schools more diverse.

• Stop Fixating on One Elite High School, Stuyvesant. There Are Bigger Problems. • How Elite Schools Stay So White • No Ethnic Group Owns Stuyvesant. All New Yorkers Do. • De Blasio’s Plan for NYC Schools Isn’t Anti-Asian. It’s Anti-Racist. • New York’s Best Schools Need to Do Better

3. Read and discuss “ The Resegregation of Jefferson County .” How does this story confirm, challenge or complicate your understanding of the topic?

Activity #3: Investigate the relationship between school segregation, funding and inequality.

Some school districts have more money to spend on education than others. Does this funding inequality have anything to do with lingering segregation in public schools? A recent report says yes. A New York Times article published in February begins:

School districts that predominantly serve students of color received $23 billion less in funding than mostly white school districts in the United States in 2016, despite serving the same number of students, a new report found. The report, released this week by the nonprofit EdBuild, put a dollar amount on the problem of school segregation, which has persisted long after Brown v. Board of Education and was targeted in recent lawsuits in states from New Jersey to Minnesota. The estimate also came as teachers across the country have protested and gone on strike to demand more funding for public schools.

Answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions.

• Who pays for public schools? • Is there a correlation between money and education? Does the amount of money a school spends on students influence the quality of the education students receive?

Now read the rest of the Times article about funding differences between mostly white school districts and mostly nonwhite ones, and then answer the following questions:

1. How much less total funding do school districts that serve predominantly students of color receive compared to school districts that serve predominantly white students? 2. Why are school district borders problematic? 3. How many of the nation’s schoolchildren are in “racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite”? 4. How much less money, on average, do nonwhite districts receive than white districts? 5. How are school districts funded? 6. How does lack of school funding affect classrooms? 7. What is the new kind of ”white flight” in Arizona and why is it a problem? 8. What is an “enclave”? What does the statement “some school districts have become their own enclaves” mean?

• Did anything in the article surprise you? Shock you? Make you angry or sad? Why? • On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain. • How could school funding be made more equitable?

Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate the interrelationship among school segregation, funding and inequality.

1. Research your local school district budget, using public records or local media, such as newspapers or television reporting. What is the budget per student? How does that budget compare with the state average? The national average? 2. Compare your findings about your local school budget to your research about segregation and student outcomes, using the Miseducation database. Do the results of your research suggest any correlations?

Activity #4: Examine potential legal remedies to school segregation and educational inequality.

How do we get better schools for all children? One way might be to take the state to court. A Times article from August reports on a wave of lawsuits that argue that states are violating their constitutions by denying children a quality education. The article begins:

By his own account, Alejandro Cruz-Guzman’s five children have received a good education at public schools in St. Paul. His two oldest daughters are starting careers in finance and teaching. Another daughter, a high-school student, plans to become a doctor. But their success, Mr. Cruz-Guzman said, flows partly from the fact that he and his wife fought for their children to attend racially integrated schools outside their neighborhood. Their two youngest children take a bus 30 minutes each way to Murray Middle School, where the student population is about one-third white, one-third black, 16 percent Asian and 9 percent Latino. “I wanted to have my kids exposed to different cultures and learn from different people,” said Mr. Cruz-Guzman, who owns a small flooring company and is an immigrant from Mexico. When his two oldest children briefly attended a charter school that was close to 100 percent Latino, he said he had realized, “We are limiting our kids to one community.” Now Mr. Cruz-Guzman is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit saying that Minnesota knowingly allowed towns and cities to set policies and zoning boundaries that led to segregated schools, lowering test scores and graduation rates for low-income and nonwhite children.

Read the entire article and then answer the following questions:

1. What does Mr. Cruz-Guzman’s suit allege against the State of Minnesota? 2. Why are advocates for school funding equity focused on state government, as opposed to the federal government? 3. What did a state judge rule in New Mexico? What did the Kansas Supreme Court rule? 4. What fraction of fourth and eighth graders in New Mexico is not proficient in reading? What does research suggest may improve their test scores? 5. According to a 2016 study, if a school spends 10 percent more per pupil, what percentage more would students earn as adults? 6. What does the economist Eric Hanushek argue about the correlation between spending and student achievement? 7. What remedy for school segregation is Daniel Shulman, the lead lawyer in the Minnesota desegregation suit, considering? Why are charter schools nervous about the case? 8. How does Khulia Pringle see some charter schools as “culturally affirming”? What problems does Ms. Pringle see with busing white children to black schools and vice versa?

• Did anything in the article surprise you? What other emotional responses did you have while reading? Why? • On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain. • Do the potential “cultural” benefits of school segregation outweigh the costs?

Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate potential remedies to school segregation and educational inequality.

1. Read the obituaries “ Jean Fairfax, Unsung but Undeterred in Integrating Schools, Dies at 98 ” and “ Linda Brown, Symbol of Landmark Desegregation Case, Dies at 75 .” How do their lives inform your grasp of legal challenges to segregation?

2. Watch the following video about school busing . How does this history inform your understanding of the benefits and challenges of busing?

3. Read about how parents in two New York City school districts are trying to tackle segregation in local middle schools . Then decide if these models have potential for other districts in New York or around the country. Why or why not?

Activity #5: Consider alternatives to integration.

Is integration the best and only choice for families who feel their children are being denied a quality education? A recent Times article reports on how some black families in New York City are choosing an alternative to integration. The article begins:

“I love myself!” the group of mostly black children shouted in unison. “I love my hair, I love my skin!” When it was time to settle down, their teacher raised her fist in a black power salute. The students did the same, and the room hushed. As children filed out of the cramped school auditorium on their way to class, they walked by posters of Colin Kaepernick and Harriet Tubman. It was a typical morning at Ember Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an Afrocentric school that sits in a squat building on a quiet block in a neighborhood long known as a center of black political power. Though New York City has tried to desegregate its schools in fits and starts since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school system is now one of the most segregated in the nation. But rather than pushing for integration, some black parents in Bedford-Stuyvesant are choosing an alternative: schools explicitly designed for black children.

Before you read the rest of the article, answer the following questions based on your own knowledge, experience and opinions:

• Should voluntary segregation in schools be permissible? Why or why not? • What potential benefits might voluntary segregation offer? • What potential problems might it pose?

Now, read the entire article and then answer these questions:

1. What is the goal of Afrocentric schools? 2. Why are some parents and educators enthusiastic about Afrocentric schools? 3. Why are some experts wary of Afrocentric schools? 4. What does Alisa Nutakor want to offer minority students at Ember? 5. What position does the city’s schools chancellor take on Afrocentric schools? 6. What “modest desegregation plans” have some districts offered? With what result? 7. Why did Fela Barclift found Little Sun People? 8. Why are some parents ambivalent about school integration? According to them, how can schools be more responsive to students of color? 9. What does Mutale Nkonde mean by the phrase “not all boats are rising”? 10. What did Jordan Pierre gain from his experience at Eagle Academy?

• Did anything in the article surprise you? What other emotional responses did you have while reading? Why? • On the other hand, did anything in the article strike you as unsurprising? Explain. • Did the article challenge your opinion about voluntary segregation? How?

Choose one or more of the following ideas to investigate some of the complicating factors that influence where parents decide to send their children to school.

1. Read and discuss “ Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City .” How does reading about segregation, inequity and school choice from a parent’s perspective confirm, challenge or complicate your understanding of the topic?

2. Read “ Do Students Get a Subpar Education in Yeshivas? ” How might a student’s religious affiliation complicate the issue of segregation and inequity in education?

Activity #6: Learn more and take action.

Segregation still persists in public schools more than 60 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. What more can you learn about the issue? What choices can you make? Is there anything students can do about the issue?

Write a personal essay about your experience with school segregation. For inspiration, read Erin Aubrey Kaplan’s op-ed essay, “ School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice ,” which links a contemporary debate with the author’s personal experience of school segregation.

Interview a parent, grandparent or another adult about their educational experiences related to segregation, integration and inequity in education. Compare their experiences with your own. Share your findings in a paper, presentation or class discussion.

Take action by writing a letter about segregation and educational inequity in your community. Send the letter to a person or organization with local influence, such as the school board, an elected official or your local newspaper.

Discuss the issue in your school or district by raising the topic with your student council, parent association or school board. Be prepared with information you discovered in your research and bring relevant questions.

Additional Resources

Choices in Little Rock | Facing History and Ourselves

Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise | PBS

Why Are American Public Schools Still So Segregated? | KQED

Toolkit for “Segregation by Design” | Teaching Tolerance

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Americans’ views of whether educational institutions are having a positive or negative impact on the country are essentially unchanged since late 2022 . About half (53%) say colleges and universities are having a positive impact, while 45% say they’re having a negative impact.

Views of the impact of K-12 public schools are identical (53% positive, 45% negative). These also are little changed from 2022, though somewhat less positive than in 2021 (when 61% had a positive opinion).

Partisanship and ideology

Chart shows Democrats about twice as likely as Republicans to have positive views of colleges, K-12 public schools

Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to view both colleges and K-12 schools positively.

Roughly three-quarters (74%) of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say colleges have a positive impact – nearly as many (72%) say the same of K-12 public schools.

Only about a third of Republicans and Republican leaners express positive opinions about the impact of colleges (31%) or K-12 public schools (34%).

There is a sharp ideological divide among Republicans in views of educational institutions. Just 20% of conservative Republicans say colleges have a positive impact – roughly half the share of moderate and liberal Republicans who say the same (53%). The difference is similar when it comes to opinions about how K-12 public schools affect the country.

Democrats are less ideologically divided: Liberal Democrats are more likely than conservative and moderate Democrats to view colleges and public schools positively, but sizable majorities in both groups say colleges and public schools have a positive effect.

Age, education

Younger adults and those with more formal education are more likely than older adults and those with less education to view educational institutions positively.

Colleges and universities

Roughly six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 (63%) say that colleges and universities are having a positive impact, compared with 56% of those 30 to 49 and 52% of those 50 to 64.
Among those ages 65 and older, more say that colleges are having a negative impact (56%) than say they are having a positive impact (40%).
59% of those with at least a bachelor’s degree view colleges and universities positively, compared with 50% of those without a bachelor’s degree.

K-12 public schools

58% of adults under 30 say that K-12 schools are having a positive impact, as do 54% of adults ages 30 to 64. This drops to 46% among those ages 65 and older.
Six-in-ten college graduates say that K-12 public schools are having a positive impact, compared with 49% of those without college degrees.

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I n 1993, Paul T. Hill founded the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research center based out of the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance that from the outset was focused on issues of the next century and the broader question of how America’s schools can better prepare their graduates for a rapidly changing society.

This past winter, CRPE, now led by Robin J. Lake and based at UW Bothell, hosted a gathering of education experts and observers to commemorate its first quarter-century of work, toasting 25 years of research, analysis, field studies and white papers created in hopes of aiding school leaders, elected officials and families in reimagining our education system. And not just the function of our schools — but the ways in which the larger system is structured, governed and evaluated.

Across its first 25 years, CRPE’s pursuits were focused primarily on developing more highly effective public schools in every community, especially for low-income or otherwise disadvantaged students. One prominent strategy at the core of the center’s work has been the portfolio strategy, in which public schools operate with high levels of flexibility and family choice, paired with strong government oversight. But beyond the portfolio model, the center has also focused on key issues of funding formulas, governmental oversight, innovative practice and the charter school sector.

In a series of new essays and analyses published in coordination with its anniversary celebration, CRPE took the longer view, considering how these systems and structures must adapt over the next 25 years as education becomes more nimble and personalized, and as it becomes a priority for learning to extend beyond the traditional classroom structure.

It was an eye-opening and horizon-expanding thought experiment. And we’ve assembled a handful of these new essays — and their bold theses — below, in a bid to answer the underlying question: What does success look like in 2050 America, and how must our schools evolve to set graduates up for that success?

In honor of CRPE’s 25th anniversary, here are eight of the center’s biggest thoughts about the next era of public education — some not-so-modest proposals worth thinking about:

Reconfiguring the P-16 Pipeline — How do we redraw the high school–college career continuum? American public education assumes one common pathway for all: four years of high school and, for the lucky, another four years of higher education, the required credential for the vast majority of middle- and high-paying jobs. Even as careers grow ever more diverse, and students fall into a clear and concerning skill gap that will only get worse with continued automation, we remain almost singularly devoted to the “4+4” preparation model. Instead, the billions of dollars we devote each year to education would be better spent breaking down the traditional barriers among high school, college and career and reimagining the 9-16 continuum of learning so we can develop the talented workforce and democratic citizenry needed for our nation to thrive in the 21st century. Read the full proposal .

Redefining Equity — Beyond the classroom, how are we going to grapple with out-of-school enrichment, postsecondary preparation and beyond?: Expanding access to educational opportunity has defined debates over school reform for nearly a century, including desegregation efforts, finance equalization cases and proposals to expand school choice. But despite notable progress in some areas, opportunity is more stratified than ever along the lines of race and class. While the issues of racial and income-based segregation, inadequate spending and gaps in achievement continue to define educational inequality, they fail to capture broader societal shifts that are changing the ways we think about youth development. These include increased household spending on out-of-school learning experiences, particularly among wealthy families; the growing complexity of postsecondary educational opportunities; and the importance of non-achievement-based educational outcomes. These shifts highlight sources of educational inequality that, to date, policy has largely failed to address — and at times actively undermined — and suggest a new framework for our evolving conversation surrounding improving opportunity for America’s most vulnerable children. Read the full proposal .

Rejecting ‘Average’ — How we can redesign the school system for the tails, not the mean. The public education system must prepare all students to solve the problems of the future. But the current system is not rising to the challenge. While high school graduation rates are at an all-time high, completion and dropout statistics for students with disabilities remain dismal. (The latest federal education statistics show that fewer than two-thirds finished high school with a standard diploma.) Beyond students with disabilities, other student populations have unique needs that existing public school systems remain ill-equipped to meet. The struggles of these students, along with those of countless other “square pegs” — independent thinkers, nonconformists, students who are exceptionally creative — cry out for approaches that can better match talent with opportunity. Here’s a renewed call to design an education system for the tails, not the mean. Read the full analysis .

Rethinking the Classroom — Instead of a portfolio of schools, envisioning a portfolio of student opportunities: Conversations about the next generation of education reforms often get bogged down in either-or disputes. Should districts focus on improving their own schools or contracting with autonomous schools of choice? Can students gain access to job-related learning opportunities without having to sacrifice high school college prep coursework? Should states invest in expanding universal pre-K and other programs built to help lay students’ academic foundations, or should they focus on building K-12 schools capable of helping them achieve faster rates of academic growth? An agile public education system, Lake argues in this new essay tied to the 25th anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, would avoid pat answers to these questions and concentrate instead on providing effective, flexible and individual pathways toward common goals. It would find ways to enable every student to achieve gateway competencies. It would give students the support necessary to achieve their full potential and allow them to pursue personal objectives such as job and language skills, social-emotional development and achievements in science or the arts. Most importantly, if something was not working, or a student’s needs were not being met, an agile education system would be equipped to change. Looking beyond merely a portfolio of schools, a broader student-centered system would be animated by a drive to do whatever is necessary to prepare every student to solve the problems and capitalize on the opportunities that await the next generation. Read the full proposal .

Retraining Teachers — How personalization, specialization, soft skills and a talent shortage will reshape the profession: A rapidly changing future has implications not just for learners but also for educators. What might it mean for who teaches what — and how? In a new analysis, we consider the broader future of the teaching profession, from how instructors will be required to expand their expertise to how schools and districts will be forced to rethink issues of recruitment, development and collaboration. In particular, the paper identifies two areas of teacher expertise beyond academics that will become increasingly important and spotlights emerging ideas about how to challenge the one-teacher, one-classroom model while making the job more manageable. The authors also underscore the need to cast a wider net in engaging a broader community in the conversation about what quality teaching looks like for the next generation. “The future of teaching may be less about knowing the answer,” the authors write, “and more about rethinking who asks the questions and works to solve emerging problems.” Read the full thinkpiece .

Redistributing Funding — How routing dollars to students instead of schools could fund a more nimble system: In a more nimble public education system, all students would have equitable access to learning opportunities during the summer, outside the normal school day and beyond the school walls. Students would also continue to have access to these learning opportunities, supplemental support and postsecondary education opportunities later in life. And students from special populations — those who are gifted and low-income, those with disabilities, those who are not native English speakers or who lack stable home environments — would have access to educational programs tailored to their circumstances. One policy could help enable all of them: personalized education funding. Rather than states and local governments allocating funding to specific public schools, students themselves would receive funding based on their needs and circumstances, and could then plan with their parents to direct this money toward their educational needs: basic school attendance, tutoring, therapy or supplemental learning experiences. Read the full analysis .

Restructuring Education Systems — How can an innovative approach to school governance balance a need for experimentation with a parent’s right to make informed choices?: A local public education system built for personalization and rapid adjustment to workforce demands must be open to innovation and make full use of learning opportunities outside of conventional schools. But that system cannot be so atomized, chaotic or dominated by irresponsible providers that families are ultimately unable to make informed choices for their children. Families need a comprehensible set of options and information about likely results for students, and communities need options that prepare young people for jobs that are likely to exist. Still, this need for some degree of order and process must not drive out innovation and responsiveness to change. Students must be free to pursue — and providers free to offer — learning experiences that community leaders might not understand or prefer. Paul Hill takes the long view on how to balance these essential, conflicting needs. Read the full commentary .

Empowering Change — Why America’s educators are ready to innovate (but their education systems are not): Designed more than 100 years ago, America’s public education system is not preparing students for today’s realities of civic and global competitiveness — much less tomorrow’s. Consider the facts: U.S. students are scoring poorly in math and science compared with students in other industrialized countries, and they’re not graduating with the necessary skills or knowledge to succeed in college. Think about social mobility, and the situation grows even starker: Children from high-income families are 10 times as likely as other children to become inventors; NAEP fourth-grade achievements show that only 8.6 percent of students with disabilities scored proficient in reading; and rural students have less access to high-speed internet, AP coursework and extracurricular opportunities, leaving them more likely to “undermatch” themselves when applying to colleges. There is no single answer, but for every solution tried, there is one common theme: Educators, students and families who want something better are thwarted by an outdated delivery model. Robin Lake pens an in-depth analysis of the current educational system — and why she says it will not deliver in preparing students to solve the problems of an unpredictable future society. Read the full analysis .

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Essay: The school system

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Students beginning in elementary school and continuing all the way through secondary education have become acclimated to a standard school schedule of sitting behind their desks for 180 days a year at an average of 7 hours a day. This system has been in commission for over a century and is desperately in need of an overhaul. By the time students walk into their final period of the day they are mentally numb to anything the teacher is trying to teach which will only end up hurting their own performance in the future. Having subjects pressed onto them repeatedly while they are desperately trying to remember every detail is a staggering amount of mental work for a child to bear. Some schools have attempted to fix this fatigue by creating a rotating class schedule so that the students are not struggling through a class for the sole reason that they have it early in the morning or late in the day. This system works in such a way that on a Monday a teacher will have a group of students first period but by Friday the teacher would not have that same group until last period. While this is an impressive way to work around the issue, at the end of the day there is still a teacher who is drawing the proverbial short straw. Everyone’s ability to receive a standard and enlightening education should be fair. Several schools around the nation have been attempting to find ways to close the achievement gap with the time they have but it is nearly impossible. The students at Clarence Edwards Middle School ‘have now narrowed that gap by two-thirds in science and by more than 80 percent in English language arts; they now score substantially higher than the state averages in math’ (Gabrieli 2). By adding merely a single hour of instructional time a day as well as offering instruction during the summers has drastically improved in the short span of a handful of years. During this hour students are given small group tutoring in the subjects they are doing most poorly in, mainly reading and math. In the case that a student is excelling in both of these subjects they then move on to dedicate the time to science. This allows the students to reach the level of a well-rounded education in such a way that every student is individually taken into consideration yet ensures that the student body as a whole is seeing improvement. Though it was no easy task, the changes in the school atmosphere, which was once full of bad behavior and truant learners, have been dramatic. According to Gabrieli ‘There’s now a sense of positive energy, enthusiasm, and optimism in the building. Students have learned that through hard work, they can excel against the odds’ (Gabrielli 3). With such a vast improvement it is obvious that the children have had to put in significant time as well. Their school days begin at 7:20 in the morning and end at 4:00 in the afternoon ‘ nearly nine consecutive hours. However, for all the work the students put in during the school week they are rewarded with an 11:20 dismissal time on Fridays. There has to be a level of give and take for an educational system to be successful. If the teachers and the administrators expect their pupils to sit in their desks for hours on end then there must be a mutual level of respect between the two because both parties are getting something out of it ‘ the teachers have the pride of seeing their students excel and the students are able to hold their heads up high as they move on towards their futures. As the idea of putting longer instructional times into practice becomes a more viable option many parties worry about what the cost of putting such a proposal into effect would be. As the nation is already millions of dollars in debt, the school system literally cannot afford to put more money into the system unless they are presented with real results. From another of Gabrieli’s articles it can be seen that in districts where extended learning time has been put into effect the cost of the extra time has ranged from nothing to a mere $1,300 per student. Though the majority of the places where there is no extra cost are in public charter schools, where they have been using extended learning time since their introduction, many regular schools have been able to avoid higher costs by simply reworking their employment schedules in a just and fair manner. Many schools have taken to adopting a staggered employment schedule throughout their two hundred extended learning time days. With this schedule, each teacher works the standard one hundred and eighty days over the two hundred day period while periodically switching off with fellow teachers to enjoy sanctioned vacations or participate in instructional workshops. By adhering to this program the schools avoid hiking up their budgets due to salaries and still receive the benefit of extended learning time in school. In Brooklyn Generation school ‘the school has achieved positive results: Ninety percent of its first cohort of fourth-year students graduated on time, and 90 percent were accepted into college’ (Gabrieli 27). Not only is the program extremely cost effective but the schools have shown a great increase in their proficient and advanced student production. Though many have shown skepticism at the proposal for extended learning time across the country they are hard pressed to deny the positive results coming from dozens of schools which have already adopted the program. Despite all the success at keeping extended learning time at an allover low cost many people are missing the real point behind such reforms. As Gabrielli expressed in his article ”Rather than asking, ‘How can we afford more time’? more schools need to ask ‘What amount of learning time do we need to succeed”? (28). When it comes to the education of our future generations the real questions need to deal with the issues of betterment first. If this were a truly successful system than the logistics would never be enough to stand in the way of advancement. If anything the studies surrounding schools and districts which have implemented extended learning time have proved that as long as there’s a will there’s a way to achieve their goals. Schools have to prioritize within their systematic hierarchy so that they may most effectively teach their students. Though it is a clear and evident point that ‘teachers are there to teach, not baby-sit, our children’ there will always be an indissoluble link between school schedules and the family’s economic needs (Rhonda). The last lengthening of the school year occurred during industrialization from 1870 to 1930 in order to allow parents to have more freedom to enhance their standard of living. In the time that has passed since then the school calendar has remained static. Another lengthening of the year would not be a waste of time. Though many would call the practice baby-sitting, others would argue that extended time is a blessing in disguise. With the academic achievement gap widening each year this extra time would allow teachers to cover more material in a standard school day. While many of the witnesses to the new modifications are concerned about cost and results many are overlooking another important group to consider ‘ the families. As the national economy is changing drastically a large need has arisen for both parents to become breadwinners in the home. As expressed in Rhonda’s article, ‘The days of June Cleaver waiting to greet the school bus each afternoon with a plate of warm cookies and a nice, cold glass of milk are pretty much over, assuming they ever existed at all’ (Rhonda). Due to both parents having to work in order to provide an average standard of living for their children, the problem comes in when it is realized that there is significantly more work days in the year than school days. It is difficult not only to afford but to find quality care before and after school for younger children. Having an extended school year, or at least and extended school day, would make it significantly easier to coordinate children’s and adult’s schedules.

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The Bottom Line Our Public School System Is Set Up To Fail — and It’s Succeeding

The recent report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes referred to as the nation’s report card, is a devastating assessment of the condition of our nation’s schools. In short, there has been virtually no educational progress with our nation’s children in more than 30 years – and urban districts are the worst performers.

The report ranked the Detroit Public Schools as the worst performing of all 26 large city districts, with just 5 percent of their eighth-grade students rated proficient in reading and only 3 percent in math. What is surprising is the Detroit Public Schools Community District rated 99 percent of Detroit’s teachers as “highly effective” or “effective,” the two highest ratings given to teachers. An added conundrum is that Detroit public high schools received an “F” on student proficiency and yet received an “A” on graduation rates.

Detroit is far from alone in this education crisis. New York City spends a whopping $38,000 per student per year, and student learning results are mediocre . Instead of correcting its low levels of student proficiency, New York plans to lower the standard in both math and English language arts, with the hope that more students will reach “proficient.” The same thing is happening elsewhere, notably California , where there is an effort to eliminate Algebra in the eighth grade so more disadvantaged children can compete.

The results nationwide are dismal, according to the Nation’s Report Card. Virtually every major city shows declining proficiency for their students, even as school spending continues to increase. For years, we have been told that more money is what is needed to improve student learning. Yet more money has not worked for one simple reason: money is not the problem. The problem is the system.

In public education, we reward mediocrity and discourage excellence. It’s no wonder our students fail to learn. A teacher cannot be fired for poor performance. Consequently, evaluations have little or no meaning. Not only can teachers not be fired, but incompetent teachers will actually make more money next year as they gain another year of seniority and an automatic raise. In other words, mediocrity is rewarded, and excellence is not.

Rewarding mediocrity also extends to the principal level, where promotion is done by self-selection. A truly incompetent teacher can unilaterally decide to become a principal because the only prerequisite for this important position is 2-3 years of teaching experience and the ability to pay the tuition for principal training in any one of more than a thousand education schools. And once admitted, the graduation of the principal candidate is virtually guaranteed – no one fails a principal training program.

In short, in public education, we obtain leadership by accident rather than by design, which may help explain how principals could possibly rate 99 percent of their teachers as effective when 95 percent of the students fail to reach proficiency. This is just another example of mediocre leadership coupled with a lack of accountability. Sadly, a similar scenario also plays out at the superintendent level.

This lack of accountability is not limited to personnel but applies also to the expenditure of education funds. Virtually all public school systems are measured on whether money is spent as specified by the state or federal government funding agency rather than on whether the money was spent effectively to actually enhance educational achievement.

To make matters worse, public schools receive funding regardless of performance. Every year, more money is demanded, with no corresponding demands that student learning performance improve. In other words, just as educators receive an annual pay raise regardless of their performance, K-12 public schools continue to cost taxpayers more, with little to show for the ever-increasing spending. At best, the status quo is maintained. Yet often the result is worse.

Our K-12 public education system is not designed to be effective in student learning, educator performance, or the effective utilization of money. Devoid of accountability, it will never effectively educate our children. It would be more accurate to describe our public education system as our country’s largest adult employment program.

It’s time to address the major flaws of the system and demand competence and accountability for performance. If we fail to do that, our children’s education will continue to languish as costs continue to escalate. Neither should be acceptable. Both our children and our country need us to demand better.

K-12 education
public schools

What Is a Public School System, Really?

Teacher, blogger, tailgate trombonist

One of the repeated tricks and techniques of reformsterism is to propose policies or procedures as beneficial for public education when in fact, intentionally or not, they are far more likely to damage public education. This argument usually takes the form of trying to redefine public education itself -- kind of like handing someone a screwdriver and saying, "This will be a great hammer; just hold it like this." Much of what is presented as an attempt to reform the public schools are actually attempts to turn them into Not Public Schools.

So let me see if I can lay out what features the real U.S. education system actually has, the better to understand when we've moved outside that boundary. I'll stipulate right up front that our current public education system does not always nail each of these perfectly, but these traits still define what our public education system is (and is not).

The public education system takes all students.

We've divided up territory geographically so that we can be sure not to miss a single child. If a child lives within the boundaries of that school system, that school system must take that child. There are some limits in the public education system (for instance, a child who presents a clear and present danger to other students), but beyond those limits no child can be rejected, pushed out, or required to seek education elsewhere. And certainly the public education system does not require you to apply to be in the system, or go find a school to take you when your original school no longer will.

The public education system is publicly funded.

All taxpayers contribute. It may be necessary for state or federal government to shuffle some of that money around to even things out; after all, we do not provide roads decent roads only in rich neighborhoods. If there's a requirement that parents must contribute money, time, or both in order for their child to be allowed to attend, that is not a public school.

Conversely, any attempt to cut funding or failure to properly provide for a school is nothing less than an attempt to turn it into Not A Public School. While student "outcomes" are certainly a consideration for a public school, it is does not establish equity to simply demand that all schools produce the same outcomes regardless of what resources and facilities they have.

The public education system is run by local taxpayers.

A public school system is one of the last bastions of participatory democracy. The school is run by a group of taxpayers who are elected by other taxpayers. The school board must (in fact, can only) have public meetings at which members of the public can have their say about the decisions of the school board. Taxpayers get to have their final say about school board decisions by voting.

If a school is run by people who don't have to meet in front of the taxpayers and do not have to listen to the taxpayers, it is not a public school. If the people who run the school cannot be removed from office by the people who live in that local school district, it is not a public school. If school policy is set by a people who do not have to answer to local taxpayers, that is not a public school.

The public school system is run transparently.

The complete financial records of a public school are always available, in full, to any taxpayer and/or voter in the local school district. Any school that says, "We don't have to show our financial records to you," is not a public school. The public school system is not run for profit.

The public school system is a public service. If you like, you can think of it as a managed public good, like a park or the municipal water supply. As such, it never produces a profit for anybody. This includes directly (as in an explicitly for-profit charter) or indirectly (as in a not-for-profit charter that pays profit-creating fees to a building owner or school management company).

The public school is stably staffed with the best professionals the available money can buy.

A public school hires certified professionals, and it pays with a competitive salary and it structures its system to encourage the staff members to stay in the school for the length of their career. Teachers are evaluated with a system that considers the full range of skills and qualities that the school district values, and those who do poorly receive support or, eventually, fired if they cannot get their act together. A public school tries to be a source of stability in its community.

Schools that use any of the pay systems that are designed to cut total operating cost by paying the total teaching staff bottom dollar are not public schools. Using an evaluation system that does not really evaluate the full range of teacher qualities, or which injects an invalid random element, is an attempt to turn the school into Not a Public School. None of these "merit" systems, VAMvaluations, "career ladders," or short-term hiring practices designed to run a school on the cheap contribute to the quality or stability of the school.

The public school is a long term commitment.

Public schools represent a promise by the community made to every child, present and future, that they will be given the best education we can get them, no matter what, as long as there are children who need it. Public schools do not close for business reasons.

You can break these rules.

There are plenty of perfectly good schools that don't meet these standards, and their existence is not a pimple on the face of the universe. But they aren't public schools.

Another way of understanding the reformster position is that they have tried to convince us that entities that are not public schools actually are. If they want to have a conversation about how to change our traditional public education system into something else, that's a perfectly legitimate conversation to have.

But to have that conversation, we need honesty. Reformsters need to just say, "We want to replace the traditional American public education system with a different kind of system," and then we can have that conversation. But insisting that we are trying to bolster or improve public education by stripping its defining qualities is both destructive and dishonest.

Originally posted in Curmudgucation

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From our partner, more in education.

Oral History Offers a Model for How Schools Can Introduce Students to Complex Topics

As historian David McCullough said, history is the study of who we are and why we are the way we are.

That’s why teachers in the Memphis-Shelby County public schools, as racially isolated now as they were when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation, have launched a curriculum to introduce their students to the 13 children who helped integrate these Tennessee city schools in 1961.

Memphis-Shelby County teachers, researchers from the University of Memphis, and the local Memphis 13 Foundation worked with seven of the 10 surviving members of the Memphis 13—a group of Black 1st graders who peacefully enrolled in four all-white schools at the height of the civil rights era—to develop teacher training, lesson plans, and oral history activities for elementary students.

“Just going home and talking to grandparents or talking to the elders in their community was never going to be enough,” said Anna Falkner, an assistant professor at the University of Memphis and a co-developer of the curriculum, “because it wouldn’t provide [students] with the context that they needed in order to understand what happened and understand the ongoing effects of, for example, the way segregation looks today.”

The Memphis 13 project offers a model for how schools can introduce complex subjects to students, even in early grades, while also giving them opportunities to investigate social studies in their communities

“Really consider the context,” Falkner said. “What are the specifics that can help students understand their Southern context or the context wherever they are and what that means in relation to the larger experience. It’s not just focusing on that national narrative, not just sharing Brown v. Board , but really thinking about, what did this look like in my backyard? What did it look like for my family members or my community members?”

For example, teachers met with surviving members of the Memphis 13 to identify projects for students in 2nd and 5th grades, when Tennessee social studies standards cover civil rights issues. Sheila Malone, one of the students who first integrated into the district’s Bruce Elementary as a 1st grader, suggested that 5th graders record the experiences of others who had attended the district schools during desegregation.

“[Malone] wanted the students to go back home and share the story and have intergenerational conversations about the history of our schools,” said Gina Tillis, the director of curriculum and instruction for the Memphis 13 Foundation, who co-developed the Memphis curriculum. “One of the things that I’ve noticed with the members of Memphis 13 is, as they’re sharing their stories, they’re unpacking memories that have been silenced. … This is a really powerful space for students to reflect on their education, their parents’ and their elders’ education, and what we’re doing collectively to create a more inclusive and equitable school system.”

Second graders, for example, watch documentaries and review news accounts about the school desegregation decisions in Memphis and other cities, identifying ways children their age participated. In 5th grade , students review collected oral history interviews and collect their own, as well as analyze modern policies related to school integration. Tillis said the project plans to expand the curriculum to 8th and 11th grades in the future.

Building school integration history projects

Emerging technology has made it easier for educators to engage their students in active historical research, according to the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University in Ohio. The center, for example, has developed apps to help students record interviews and archive historical documents.

Efforts like those of the Memphis 13 helped integrate public schools in the decades following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education . However, these trends began to reverse in the 1990s and have worsened to this day, even as the overall public school population has grown more diverse. Studies find schools serving high populations of students of color continue to have on average fewer educational opportunities —including challenging courses, experienced teachers, and other resources—compared with schools serving mostly white students.

While the Memphis 13 are well known, Tillis stressed that schools can use community history to engage students regardless of where they are. “Everyone has a school desegregation story. Every district, every person ... and every district story is unique,” she said. “It’s, I think, one of the most powerful stories to share because it offers you this platform to really deconstruct what’s going on in our schools.”

Researchers recommended that schools interested in developing similar projects:

Work with local historians and groups to identify social studies topics and events that had strong effects on the local community. This can include school district librarians or archivists, for example.
Provide teachers with training in both the historical context and strategies and tools for documenting community history.
Focus on topics that encourage students to make connections between history and current issues in their community.

“One of the lessons that we’re hoping to share with other school districts is just the power of listening to your community members who are historians, even if they don’t work for the local archive: the neighbor down the street who kept all the newspapers, the person who knew everybody in the neighborhood,” Falkner said. “Finding those community members and making a meaningful way for them to participate in the curriculum development is the most important piece.”

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Ahenewa El-Amin leads a conversation with students during her AP African American Studies class at Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Ky., on March 19, 2024.

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