U.S. and German Public-Education Systems

Overview of US Public Education: Background

Education has been a feature of community building and nation building in the United States from the earliest period of European settlement of North America. Yet the educational system of the United States as an organized, unitary, and institutional structure having the official sanction and support of government did not appear in the American culture fully formed. For more than a century after the first Europeans arrived in the New World, a variety of educational structures existed in North America that reflected the specialized backgrounds and experiences of those who had emigrated.

The settlement of Massachusetts Bay brought with it the Puritan version of English norms, which mandated that children be educated within the family. As Johanningmeier (12) points o

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um-competency tests to assess student performance and evaluate student placement options (Nerison-Low and Adwill 35). All students in US schools are required to take a specific core of courses. Course requirements may, however, vary, according as students select a college-preparatory (academic) or vocational curriculum. In 1991, public-high-school graduates were typically required to have completed 3.8 years of English (= language skills), 2.5 years of math, .2 years (at least one semester) of computer science, 2.9 years of social studies (government, history, etc.), 2.1 years of science, and .3 years of a foreign language. Remaining courses would consist of electives (Quiram, et al. 23). At the end of the 1990s, the pattern of core courses has remained focused on English, math, social studies, and science, although some shift of emphasis has taken place in math and science placement. "The process of determining who will take advanced courses usually begins with placement in the first algebra course," Hofer explains (115). "Once offered fairly uniformly as a ninth-grade course, algebra is now an eighth grade option in many schools." Sometimes it is offered to "precocious seventh-graders." However, Hofer adds that individual expe
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Approximate Pages = 38 (250 words per page)

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