While
the United States of America
boasts
many of the world's top universities, such as Harvard, Stanford or Cornell,
as well as many great high schools, and excellent
grade
schools too, when it comes to international comparisons, the
American education system is not one of the best.
Systematically, international surveys of educational achievement
show that the United States of America performs worse than many, if not
most, other developed countries, particularly at high school level. In
recent years, surveys have shown that the average American high school
student is less numerate than teenagers in Japan or most European countries;
and in spite of the cosmopolitan nature of modern America, few Americans,
apart from those from non-English-speaking families, speak any foreign
languages. Even in California, where 32% of the population is now of Latino
origin, few non-Latinos can do more than
garble
a few words in Spanish.
For years, education reform has been
a major challenge for successive governments, both in Washington and in
the different states. In February 1999, President Bill Clinton unveiled
a major education reform initiative. "Our administration has made education
a high priority, focusing on standards,
accountability
and choice in public schools, and on making a college
education available to every American," he said when presenting his reform.
Yet even if many of America's schools
improved during the Clinton years, the task of improving the whole of the
nation's education system remains enormous, as Clinton knew before he even
reached the White House. Previously, as Governor of Arkansas, Clinton had
introduced a radical reform, obliging all of the state's teachers to take
a test. When the results first came through, Clinton and his advisers were
shocked to see that almost 30% of teachers had failed! Alarmed by this
poor result, the state's education authorities improved the scores before
making them public, with a failure rate of about 10%.
The case of Arkansas, clearly illustrates
the extent of the problem faced by the education system in America today;
an enormous range in quality from the
best centers of excellence, to the poorest schools in the poorest regions.
Arkansas, a rural Southern state west
of the Mississippi, is one of the poorest states in America, a state which
has difficulty attracting good quality teachers, particularly in its many
small towns. Arkansas is also a state with a high African American population
(over 15%), and a low proportion of university graduates
in its population (about 13%). It is however a state, and as such
it is large enough to include a full cross section
of American society. Like any state, Arkansas has its elites, its well
educated citizens, its doctors, lawyers, businessmen and university professors,
plus their families; and like any state, Arkansas also has its top schools
and colleges and its universities, with good teachers and professors. After
all, Bill Clinton himself, born in the small rural town of Hope, Arkansas,
was a product of the Arkansas education system, at least during his younger
years. The system did not fail him.
Teens at High School in Little Rock, the capital of
Arkansas – one of the state's prestigious schools. In 1957, the Arkansas
authorities resisted a federal order to desegregate high schools, and allow
Black students into this famous school. The confrontation at Little Rock
High School was one of the major events in the history of civil rights
in the USA.
Photo Linguapress
But what if Bill Clinton had been born not in Hope,
Arkansas, but in Hopeless, Georgia? Apart from the fact that there is no
such town, Hopeless GA could be any one of hundreds of inner-city
or poor rural areas anywhere in the USA, often with large minority populations,
where schools are failing and have failed whole generations of students.
Who has not heard of the notorious
American inner-city high schools, that feel more like prisons than schools,
with their metal detectors, their security doors, and their barred windows?
It was this type of school that Clinton
was determined to revitalize or eradicate
through his 1999 reforms; and it is against this kind of school that George
W. Bush is determined to take action too.
One of Bush's plans is to transfer
more responsibility for the running of education from state bureaucracies
to local communities** and school districts.
"The new role of the federal government
is to set high standards, provide resources, hold people accountable, and
liberate school districts to meet the standards," he said in January, as
he signed the new Education Reform bill
at a high school in Hamilton, Ohio.
"We have got to trust the local folks
on how to achieve standards," he continued.
"In Washington, there's some smart people there, but the people who care
most about the children in Hamilton are the citizens of Hamilton. The people
who care most about the children in this school are the teachers and parents
and school board members. And therefore,
schools not only have the responsibility to improve, they now have the
freedom to improve."
In short, Bush implied that education
reform in the USA is going to follow the same path as recent reforms in
England, which have already produced positive results, even if they have
not always been well received by teachers. They include more specific targets
to be achieved, more testing to make sure that these targets are achieved,
more local management of schools, and financial incentives, such as higher
salaries,
to get good teachers to teach in poor schools.
After all, when talking about education
reform, it is at the poorest schools, in poor or deprived
neighborhoods, that reform is most vital. In America, as anywhere,
a poor education is like a first-class ticket to a life at the bottom of
the ladder. Without a decent education, most kids from Hopeless GA will
go nowhere. They'll end up, if they're lucky, with a lifelong job that
pays badly; if they're unlucky, they'll float from housing
project to the soup kitchen, from temporary job to the street,
from broken home to prison, or worse.
Will Bush succeed? Nobody can forecast
the future, but there is perhaps a good chance that he will, partly thanks
to Bin Laden. Since September 11th 2001, the United States has become sharply
more aware of its standing in the world; and even if it is not politically
correct to say so, Bin Laden (who, incidentally,
was almost selected as Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" for
2001, as the year's most influential figure) has provoked a major new awareness
of America's own shortcomings, notably
among American leaders.
In his Hamilton speech, Bush implicitly
put his war on poor education in the same bag as the war on terrorism....
as two different threats to America.
And in the fight for better education, as in the fight against terror,
he can rest assured that he has the backing not just of his Republican
supporters, but of the Democrats too; and of the people. Given the magnitude
of the problem in some quarters, he will need it. |
FACTS IN BRIEF:
PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE USA:
Though the Federal government contributes
almost 10% to the national education budget i, there is no such thing as
a national education system in the USA. Within a general national framework,
each state is responsible for its own education system, is largely responsible
for financing it, and determining how much money it is willing to spend.
In recent years, some states have been spending more than twice as much
per pupil on education as other states; in 1994, budgets varied from $3,439
per pupil in Utah to $9,677 per pupil in New Jersey.
States also determine the number of years
of compulsory education: in most states, education is compulsory from five
or six to sixteen; but in some states teens have to stay on in school until
age 18.
In most places, the public education system
is divided into local school districts, which are managed by a school board,
representing the local community. School districts can be small, covering
just a small town or rural county, or enormous, covering a whole large
city; according to their local policy, they will delegate a varying amount
of freedom or independence to each individual school within their sector.
In some states, the system is very bureaucratic,
with state education authorities playing a major role. Generally, public
education is run by "school district" boards, who are responsible for coordinating
education policies, planning for changing educational needs in the community,
and often even establishing programs and curricula.
| The Chicago
School board, in an attempt to improve
standards among the city's many temporary teachers, has for example introduced
a rigidly structured curriculum which tells the city's 27,000 teachers
exactly what to teach in each lesson. The program is voluntary, but inexperienced
teachers are strongly encouraged to adhere to it. |
Many things, nevertheless, are standard throughout the
USA. Everywhere, pupils enter 1st Grade at age 6, and go up one grade each
year until either leaving without "graduating", or else going right through
to 12th Grade, and then graduating from high school. Generally speaking,
"high schools" cover the last three or last four grades, i.e. they begin
either with 9th Grade or 10th Grade.
Exams and tests:
During their high school years, pupils are given "grades"
for all their courses, and these are recorded. At the end of 12th Grade,
the pupil's grades are averaged out to provide a "GPA"
or Grade Point Average, which will often be used as a selection criterion
when they apply to college or university. Students in 12th Grade also take
"SAT's", Scholastic Aptitude Tests.
These are the second principal tests used as criteria for admission to
college or university; but they are not exams in the same way as their
European or Japanese equivalents (French baccalauréat, German Abitur,
English "A" levels), and in recent years have been much criticized.
SAT I is a 3-hour test composed of
two sections, Verbal and Math, and consists mainly of multiple-choice questions;
by design, most candidates do not have enough time to finish the test in
the time given. SAT II's are one-hour subject-specific "achievement
tests", and again are almost entirely MCQ's, though the "writing" test
contains a twenty minute essay.
After high school...
While most junior and high schools in the USA are public,
the same is not true at university level, more than half of all American
universities, and most of the more famous ones including Harvard, Yale
and Georgetown, are private. However, public "state" universities tend
to be much larger, and in fact provide over half of all university places
in the USA. American universities are intensely competitive, a fact that
is seen as being one of the main causes for the very high quality of the
best among them.
Charter Schools:
George Bush wants to develop the system of "charter schools",
schools that are run under contract by private companies or not-for-profit
organizations ù a system that has so far produced rather mixed results
in the USA, with some real successes but also some notable failures.
The value of education:
In 1998, the average income of people in America who
took their education no further than 9th grade (about age 16) was $19,380.
In the same year, college graduates (bachelor's degree or higher) earned
on average $56,524.
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