Recommendation of any good book to learn about the US school system?
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Anonymous
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We are immigrants and DC will start PK3 soon. I have been lurking on this forum and hear a lot of talks about Honor roll, honor classes, AP classes, etc.
DH and I are immigrants and we didn't have any of that, everyone took the same classes no matter how smart they were and no one complained  .
I am trying to learn about how things work here because I am tired of googling every new term I heard and I only get part of the story. Is there any good book out there that lays it all out? I understand every state/county might have a different system but want to know the basic. Thanks, |
Anonymous
No, there is no book you can read that lays out everything about the US education system as it is different from community to community and encompasses a variety of types of schools. For example, there are private schools that are religious and private schools that are non-religious. There are public schools that have specific educational methodologies and ones that just use "a traditional curriculum." There are public schools where students have to take an entrance exam to attend and others where students over the age of 5 can just show up with proper registration documents and attend school that same day. You will not need to concern yourself with honor roll, honors classes, or AP classes for your 3 year old. That is high school stuff - maybe middle school. What you are doing to learn is the best way for you to learn - googling to understand terms and scenarios as you come across them. |
Anonymous
| There apparently is a book about the DC system, though. Let me look through my emails and see if I can find the name. I'm not sure how old it is, and it may be outdated, but it'd be a start. |
Anonymous
Well, I grew up in the US and I'm still lost on a lot of it so .... I think you will learn as you go. I'm sure there is a book, but it may be one sided and not be what you're looking for. What country are you from? That might help us to help you. |
Anonymous
OP here, let just say I went to public school in developing country and DH went to public school in Europe, however we had very similar school system and experience. 95% of kids go to public school and take the exact same classes. In high school, depending on how you are doing in certain subjects (+ your preference), you might be sent to class that is more focused on Math/Technology or Languages or history etc. For example I was good in math and in 9 grade (high school started in 9 grade) I started taking more math and math had a lot of weight. My sister was ok in math but preferred languages so she did Languages but she could have done math but she would have probably struggled a bit (Languages had more weight for her, but she still took math but math had less weight) I hope this makes some sense
PS: I know my kid is still very young but I still like to know how things work in middle and upper school. |
Anonymous
I think what you may be talking about is specialization starting in high school, which I know it does in some of Europe. This is very much NOT the way American schools work. In general they are very broad and everyone must study all the subjects, there is no specialization until college. That is why there is (often, but not much in DC) tracking where you take English, say, but you are in one of three levels of the class depending on ability (test scores, grades). Math is almost always taught this way, other subjects may not be. It really depends on the school the extent to which they will separate out the high, medium, low achievers in each subject area, or not. See the other thread on Wilson for instance. |
Anonymous
| If you want to learn about PreK, there is a book called "The Most Important Year" which discusses different approaches to PreK and actually takes a deep dive into a few DC schools as case examples. I'll be following this thread to hear if anyone has a good suggestion about upper elementary, middle or high schools. |
Anonymous
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You might like https://www.amazon.com/Our-School-Searching-Community-Choice-ebook/dp/B00JMI3QRK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425398703&sr=8-1&keywords=chaltain which compares a DC charter school (Mundo Verde) with an immersion DCPS (Bancroft). I will note that the book was published 5 years ago, and a lot has changed in DC during that time. Bancroft has a lot more in-bound and wealthier students (one reason being that it feeds to Deal and Wilson, which are well-regarded middle and high schools) and Mundo Verde has teamed up with several other charters to create a middle and high school called DC International.
It would be hard to write a book about the US education system in general because it's so different place to place. In San Francisco and New Orleans, lotteries determine a huge amount about which students go where. In some places (especially small towns and suburbs) the only choice is to go to the school you're assigned to based on your address. Some schools call it "honor roll" and others use terms like "Principal's Pride" and some don't have it at all. Even within the DC area, Fairfax's schools are really different from Montgomery County's which are different from DC's which are different than Baltimore's (to give a nearby urban comparison). And within DCPS itself, even ignoring charters, there is a ton of variation in the curricula used and how schools operate. |
Anonymous
However, all American high schools also a certain number of required courses to graduate (across every subject area) but students also have some choice in what other classes they can fill out their schedule with, from classes in computer science or art or a bunch of other things. The breadth of elective classes offered varies from school to school. There are no comprehensive exams in the US that are equivalent to A or 0 levels in terms of determining later choices, but most students who wish to attend college or university take college admissions exams called the SAT or ACT. Those tests are important to the colelge admissions process but have nothing to do with your graduation from high school. For college, some universities require you to apply directly to a specific program -- but many, many allow you to enroll and choose your main area of study (your major) in the second year (of 4). If you search online for comparisons between European and American schools at each level - elementary, middle, high school, universities - you will probably find some of the answers you are looking for. Below are links to a couple of articles written with ex-pats in mind which may also help provide an overview. https://www.internationalstudent.com/study-abroad/guide/uk-usa-education-system/ https://expatessentials.net/education-us-v-uk-education-systems/ |
Anonymous
| https://www.amazon.com/Among-Schoolchildren-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0380710897/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=tracy+kidder&qid=1551813092&s=gateway&sr=8-8 is almost 30 years old but it is a very deep dive into a year in an American classroom. If you want to learn about what the parents of your kids' classmates may have experienced (and thus, what they might be expecting their kids' education to be), it's a good read, and it's very well-written. |
Anonymous
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As PPs have said, school systems vary a lot so there isn’t really a guide to how they all work although the guides for ex-pats that PP linked to are especially a good starting point.
You should look at the information from your specific district and/or state (e.g. Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun Counties all have to follow requirements from the state of Virginia but may do so in different ways). Where do you live? We could point you to the resources that explain how things work in your district. Some of the things that tend to vary a lot across districts at the ES level are how gifted/advanced students are identified and given higher level learning opportunities, how much time is spent with technology, how they teach writing and math, how soon do they encourage advanced kids to take algebra (which sets you on the path to higher math in HS), how much recess, how much homework, how much (any?) foreign language instruction, availability of magnet schools that have a unique content focus or different type of instruction. At the HS level, school differences include… What sort of more advanced classes does the school offer -- AP (advanced placement), IB (International Baccalaureate), Dual Enrolled, Cambridge program. What electives and extracurricular activities are available -- like sports, clubs, arts, academic teams, etc. American HS students are expected to spend time in activities like this and deep, sustained involvement and leadership is expected (in addition to very high grades/test scores) if you want to go to a highly selective college. What’s the schedule like – some schools might have kids go to the same six classes every day, others are on a “block schedule” where you might go to half the classes on Monday and the other half on Tuesday. There are also block schedules where you take half your classes daily for 1st semester and the other half daily for 2nd semester (I don’t know if there are schools like that in this area but my nephew in CA has that schedule). Middle schools tend to be more like a mini HS – change classes for each subject but not as many elective/extracurricular options. Some schools offer classes to separate out higher achieving students to different degrees (e.g. one district might only offer advanced math classes while another offers it for all core courses). |
Anonymous
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I've been reading "Ain't Nobody Be Learnin' Nothin'" by Caleb Rossiter.
https://www.amazon.com/Aint-Nobody-Learnin-Nothin-High-Poverty/dp/1628941022/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3AZURUXHXLQ6G&keywords=caleb+rossiter&qid=1551814289&s=gateway&sprefix=caleb+ros%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-2 It's eye-opening. If I had read it when my kids were in pre-K I probably would have home-schooled. |
Anonymous
| Punished by rewards by Alfie Kohn |
Anonymous
| The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by EDHirsch |
Anonymous
| The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education By Diane Ravitch |