A Profile of the United States' Education System
                        Non-College-Bound Students
Leaders will probably wish to compare the rigor and content of the gateway
exams taken and passed by so many French, German, and Scottish students
with comparable exams in the United States.
No such comparable exams exist. The United States has no official national
curriculum, no official national exams and no linked system of state-level
exams that reveal what students nationwide, particularly average-achieving
students, learn by age 15 or l6 - or, for that matter, what they learn by
any age.
There are a few privately administered exams taken by large numbers of
secondary students nationwide, most notably the Scholastic Achievement Test
(SAT) and the ACT (run by the American College Testing Program), which are
required by most colleges for admission. But unlike the exams from other
countries, the SAT and ACT are designed to assess students' general
aptitude, not their performance in school. Moreover, they are taken almost
exclusively by college-bound students and thus do not reveal anything about
the performance of average-achieving students, as the other exams do.
The exam in the United States that best captures the achievement level of
students who are not necessarily planning to attend college is the General
Educational Development test, or GED. The purpose of the GED is very
different from the other exams in this book; it is taken only by adults who
drop out of high school but later wish to earn a diploma, either to pursue
further educational options or to improve their chances of getting a job.
But it is designed to reflect the curriculum taught to the average American
high school student, and is normed so that a passing grade reflects the
achievement level of 75 percent of high school graduates. It is important
to note, however, that the GED represents what students know by the end of
high school, while the other exams are taken by students at least two years
earlier.
The American Curriculum
States have primary responsibility for education in the United States and
full responsibility for curriculum, which they often delegate to local
school districts, of which there are more than 15,000.
In most states students are required to begin school by age 6 or 7, though
95 percent of 5 and 6 year olds are enrolled in school. Elementary school,
which lasts through 5th or 6th grade, is heavily focused on language arts
and math instruction with varying amounts of' attention given to history,
social and natural sciences, the arts, and physical education. Students
then move on to middle school for about three years and then to high school
through grade 12, when most students are 18 years old. Although education
in the majority of states is officially compulsory only until age 16, 88
percent of students complete high school, and reducing dropout rates is an
important goal for most school systems.
Given the decentralized nature of the American system., it is difficult if
not impossible to make general statements about the content of education in
the United States. There is no national curriculum and most states and many
local districts do not define in detail what students should be taught.
Thus, the content and rigor of the curriculum vary substantially from
school to school. In addition, the education given to individual students
within the same school differs widely (especially at the high school level)
since schools often do not prescribe a common sequence of courses for all
students. Instead, students are allowed to pick and choose classes as long
as they follow general rules requiring a distribution of courses in various
subjects. In recent years, many states have increased the number of courses
in math, science, and other academic subjects that students must take in
order to graduate. But in general the rigor of these courses is unspecified
and varies widely.
Pathways After Secondary School
Approximately 39 percent of high school graduates immediately go on to
four-year colleges and universities. The remainder will either enter the
workforce, pursue some form of vocational training, or enter college at a
later date.
As a general rule, American students discover that there is little or no
relationship between their performance in high school and their chances of
entering college or getting a job after graduation. Except for a few elite
institutions, most colleges do not require students to have high course
grades or exam scores in order to enter. Students planning to work after
graduation encounter few incentives to do anything other than fulfill the
bare minimum requirements for a high school degree. While some jobs may
require a high school diploma, few employers appear to care about the
courses taken or grades received in earning that diploma. A recent Census
Bureau study of qualities sought by employers when hiring found that grades
and teacher recommendations were at or near the bottom of the list. In
addition, except for students in a small but growing number of tech-prep
and youth apprenticeship programs across the country, there are no
opportunities for high school students to earn vocational certificates that
are valued by employers. Consequently, students not aiming for elite
colleges have few concrete reasons to pursue their high school coursework
with much enthusiasm or diligence and certainly have little incentive to
take courses more challenging than the required minimum.
The GED Exam
The GED is administered by a private organization, the GED Testing Service
at the American Council of Education. Taken only by adults, it provides
those who did not complete high school with the opportunity to earn a
credential equivalent to a high school diploma. In order not to encourage
students to drop out of school, the GEDTS bars individuals under the age of
18 from taking the exam without special permission.
The GED exam is divided into five sections: writing, social studies,
science, mathematics, and literature and the arts. The examination, which
takes seven-and-one-half hours, is intended to be more than a basic skills
test; the GEDTS constructs the test to reflect the range of skills and
knowledge taught to the average American student by the end of high school
at age 18. In addition. GED scores are normed against the performance of a
national sample of high school graduates. The scoring system is designed so
that the average high school graduate would score a 50 (on a scale of 20 to
80) on each part of the exam; two-thirds of high school graduates would
score between 40 and 60; and 75 percent would earn at least a 40 on each
section or a combined average of 45. While the scoring procedures are too
complicated to present in detail here, one must get roughly 65 percent to
75 percent of the multiple choice questions correct to score a 50 on each
of the tests presented here. To receive a 40, one must correctly answer 35
to 45 percent of the questions; to score a 60, about 90 percent.
Chuck Beams
Fidonet - 1:2608/70
cbeams@future.dreamscape.com
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* UniQWK #5290* After all is said and done, more is said than done.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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