K–12 education in the United States includes primary education starting in kindergarten, and secondary education ending in grade 12. Government-funded free schools are generally provided for these grades, but private schools and homeschooling are also possible. Most children begin elementary education with kindergarten (usually five to six years old) and finish secondary education with twelfth grade (usually 17–18 years old). In some cases, pupils may be promoted beyond the next regular grade. Parents may also choose to educate their own children at home; 1.7% of children are educated in this manner.
In 2010, American students ranked 17th in the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that this is due to focusing on the low end of performers. All of the recent gains have been made, deliberately, at the low end of the socioeconomic scale and among the lowest achievers.
About half of the states encourage schools to make their students recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag daily.
Transportation Transporting students to and from school is a major concern for most school districts. School buses provide the largest mass transit program in the country, 8.8 billion trips per year. Non-school transit buses give 5.2 billion trips annually. Around 440,000 yellow school buses carry over 24 million students to and from schools. In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that forced busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation. This ruling resulted in a white flight from the inner cities which largely diluted the intent of the order. This flight had other, non-educational ramifications as well. Integration took place in most schools, though de facto segregation often determined the composition of the student body. By the 1990s, most areas of the country had been released from mandatory busing.
School start times are computed with busing in mind. There are often three start times: for elementary, for middle and junior high school, and for high school. One school district computed its cost per bus (without the driver) at $20,575 annually. It assumed a model where the average driver drove 80 miles per day. A driver was presumed to cost $.62 per mile (1.6 km). Elementary schools started at 7:30 am, middle schools and junior high school started at 8:30, and high schools at 8:15. While elementary school started earlier, they also finish earlier, at 2:30 pm, middle schools at 3:30, and high schools at 3:20. All school districts establish their own times and means of transportation within guidelines set by their own states.
Grade placement Schools use several methods to determine grade placement. One method involves placing students in a grade based on a child's birthday. Cut-off dates based on the child's birthday determine placement in either a higher or lower grade level. For example, if the school's cut-off date is September 1, and an incoming student's birthday is August 2, then this student would be placed in a higher grade level. If the student is in high school, this could mean that the student gets placed in 11th grade instead of 10th because of their birthday. The content each grade aligns with age and academic goals for the expected age of the students. Generally a student is expected to advance a grade each year K–12; however, if a student under-performs, they may retake that grade, while students who perform at a level beyond their next-higher grade may advance by two grades instead of one.
Primary education
Historically, in the United States, local public control (and private alternatives) have allowed for some variation in the organization of schools. Elementary school includes kindergarten through fifth grade or sixth grade (sometimes to fourth grade or eighth grade). Basic subjects are taught in elementary school, and students often remain in one classroom throughout the school day, except for specialized programs, such as physical education, library, music, and art classes. There are (as of 2001) about 3.6 million children in each grade in the United States. Typically, the curriculum in public elementary education is determined by individual school districts or county school system. The school district selects curriculum guides and textbooks that reflect a state's learning standards and benchmarks for a given grade level. The most recent curriculum that has been adopted by most states is Common Core. Learning Standards are the goals by which states and school districts must meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) as mandated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This description of school governance is simplistic at best, however, and school systems vary widely not only in the way curricular decisions are made but also in how teaching and learning take place. Some states or school districts impose more top-down mandates than others. In others, teachers play a significant role in curriculum design and there are few top-down mandates. Curricular decisions within private schools are often made differently from in public schools, and in most cases without consideration of NCLB. Public elementary school teachers typically instruct between twenty and thirty students. A typical classroom will include children with a range of learning needs or abilities, from those identified as having special needs of the kinds listed in the Individuals with Disabilities Act IDEA to those that are cognitively, athletically or artistically disabled. At times, an individual school district identifies areas of need within the curriculum. Teachers and advisory administrators form committees to develop supplemental materials to support learning for diverse learners and to identify enrichment for textbooks. There are special education teachers working with the identified students. Many school districts post information about the curriculum and supplemental materials on websites for public access.
In general, a student learns basic arithmetic and sometimes rudimentary algebra in mathematics, English proficiency (such as basic grammar, spelling, and vocabulary), and fundamentals of other subjects. Learning standards are identified for all areas of a curriculum by individual States, including those for mathematics, social studies, science, physical development, the fine arts, and reading. While the concept of State Learning standards has been around for some time, No Child Left Behind has mandated that standards exist at the State level.
Secondary education
Secondary education is often divided into two phases, middle/junior high school and high school. Students in secondary schools often move to different classrooms for different subjects, and some schools enable some choice regarding what courses the student takes, though these choices are limited by factors such as governmental curriculum requirements.
"Middle school" (or "junior high school") has a variable range between districts. It usually includes sixth, seventh, and eighth grades (or other times only seventh and eighth), occasionally also includes ninth, and very occasionally fifth grades as well. High school (occasionally senior high school) includes grades 9 through 12. Students in these grades are commonly referred to as freshmen (grade 9), sophomores (grade 10), juniors (grade 11), and seniors (grade 12). At the high school level, students generally take a broad variety of classes without specializing in any particular subject. Students are generally required to take a broad range of mandatory subjects, but may choose additional subjects ("electives") to fill out their required hours of learning. High school grades normally are included in a student's official transcript for purposes such as college applications. Official transcripts usually include the ninth grade, whether it is taught in a middle school or a high school.
Each state sets minimum requirements for how many years of various mandatory subjects are required; these requirements vary widely, but generally include 2–4 years of each of: Science, Mathematics, English, Social sciences, Physical education; some years of a foreign language and some form of art education are often also required, as is a health curriculum in which students learn about anatomy, nutrition, first aid, sexuality, drug awareness, and birth control.
High schools provide vocational education, Honors, Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses. These are special forms of honors classes where the curriculum is more challenging and lessons more aggressively paced than standard courses. Honors, AP or IB courses are usually taken during the 11th or 12th grade of high school, but may be taken as early as 9th grade. Some international schools offer international school leaving qualifications, to be studied for and awarded instead of or alongside of the high school diploma, Honors, Advanced Placement, or International Baccalaureate. Regular honors courses are more intense and faster-paced than typical college preparatory courses. AP and IB are similar, but conform to a curriculum which can provide credit equivalent to college-level classes.
Tracking (streaming)
Tracking is the practice of dividing students at the primary or secondary school level into classes on the basis of ability or achievement. One common use is to offer different curricula for students preparing for college and for those preparing for direct entry into technical schools or the workplace.
Grading scale In schools in the United States children are assessed throughout the school year by their teachers, and report cards are issued to parents at varying intervals. Generally, the scores for individual assignments and tests are recorded for each student in a grade book, along with the maximum number of points for each assignment. End-of-term or -year evaluations are most frequently given in the form of a letter grade on an A-F scale, whereby A is the best possible grade and F is a failing grade (most schools do not include the letter E in the assessment scale), or a numeric percentage. The Waldorf schools,European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education, Assessment for Learning: ECSWE Review of Current Practice, 2012–13 most democratic schools,Dominos, Susan. ", The New York Times, October 4, 2010. and some other private schools, give (often extensive) verbal characterizations of student progress rather than letter or number grades. Some school districts allow flexibility in grading scales at the Student information system level, allowing custom letters or symbols to be used (though transcripts must use traditional A-F letters)
+Example grading scaleABCDF +++ –+ –+ –+ –Extra Credit (If Applicable)100.099.0–97.096.9–94.194.0–87.086.9–83.082.9–80.079.9–77.076.9–73.072.9–70.069.9–67.066.9–63.062.9–60.059.9–0.0