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Education in the United States

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I have worked a lot on this article (self-nomination) and I feel its time to bring it here. It has an excellent reference section and sources to back up figures, and it has seen peer review thoroughly (see the talk page for two lists of issues which were corrected). As far as I know, this is pretty close to perfect and as comprehensive as it can be. Of course, I would still appreciate suggestion.--naryathegreat | (talk) 00:16, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

  • Object: The article contains some boring lists in the level/grade section that should be worked into prose. The article also has several major style errors like links in section titles. Scott Ritchie 00:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I corrected the one instance of a link in the section title. As to the list (which I'm not happy with but seems community consensus keeps in place), isn't "Kindergarten consists of..." pretty much just as boring? Never mind, I changed it up some. I think all of the relevent info was already in the article, I just added a summary on Junior, Sophomore, etc. designations, what do you think? And to what other major style errors do you refer?--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:12, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
How about now?--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:14, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • The source website for Image:Bayloruniv patneff.jpg has a very nice copyright statement at the bottom: "Copyright © Baylor® University". There's no evidence that the statement does not apply to the image in question.
  • The coverage of homeschooling is still extremely inadequate.
--Carnildo 06:18, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Homeschooling is not important and is not a major part of the education system. It doesn't deserve expansive explanation. And really what would I say?--naryathegreat | (talk) 21:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Homeschooling accounts for somewhere between 2% and 5% of all primary and secondary education in the United States, and is a very complex subject. It deserves something more than the current slightly-POV brief paragraph. --Carnildo 23:33, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Except for the section comparing private and public schools, the article is written with an underlying assumption that all students are public-school students. There are multiple places where statements are made that imply or state that certain things appply to al students, when in fact they do not necessarily apply to non-public school students. For example, the article reads "Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all American states must test their students statewide to ensure that they are achieving the desired level of minimum education." The No child left behind act does not apply to private school or home-school students. The amount of supervision each state exercises over private schools and home-school students varies widely, this should be discussed. Home-schooling rates more than a brief mention. It would be nice to see some mention of the (albeit rare) arrangement of Middle School (6-8 grade), Mid-High School (9-10 groade) and Senior High School (11-12). There should be some mention of the large role played by extracurricular activities, especially sports. Dsmdgold 23:20, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
I believe I've addressed your concerns. I added a paragraph for homeschooling and a section for extracurricular activities. However, as the Census Bureau points out that less than 5% of students are homeschooled, I don't think it deserves much more discussion within the article than the paragraph. Public schooling is at 85%, after all.naryathegreat | (talk) 01:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Please read Homeschooling and reconsider your paragraph, especially the discusion of motivation for homeschooling. The statement "Children educated at home are not required to meet any public standards (i.e., standardized testing), and their parents are not evaluated by the state." is quite simply not true in the majority of states. I have removed it. Some discusion of the amount of oversight states excercise over private schools, and homeschools is still needed. Good write up of extra-curricular activites. An additional concern, the paragraph on sex education is distinctly POV. Dsmdgold 04:01, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Object: I think this is an excellent introduction to the American educational system. However, no article on a topic of such breadth is going to meet everyone's demands. For my part, here are a few ways I think the article should be improved.

  1. I think your separation of K-12 education into K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 is too rigid. True, that's the most common setup in my experience, but I have seen all kinds of schemes (from a district that goes K-2, 3-4, 5-7, 8-12 to a rural district that's K-5, 6-12).
  2. Calling alcohol a "destructive substance" is POV. It is potentially destructive.
  3. I have never a heard of a state that probihits people from leaving school until they are 18. I don't doubt that such states exist, but how many are there?
  4. I believe the U.S. is unique in that high-school and college students do not work toward passing an exam (except in AP classes). In Europe, generally, the entire point of taking secondary-level classes is to pass an exam, such as the British GCSE. The non-existence of national exams should be mentioned with some prominance, as should be the use of coursework grading as the usual method of judging student performance.
Alabama has a statewide high-school graduation exam, passing which is a prerequisite to graduation. Funnily enough, it's only been about six years since the level of this exam was raised to an eleventh-grade equivalency. Previously, the material was at an eighth-grade level. Oh, isn't the world a funny place? Anville 19:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I don't think most states consider counties to be "municipalities," so you should use the term "local government" instead in the community-college discussion.
  2. I think you should better clarify the fact that unlike in many other countries, religious schools do not receive direct government funding for general education.
  3. You should consider putting the term "so-called" before "school choice," since it is one of those political euphemisms.
  4. The phrase, "Today, sex education in the United States is patchy at best and nonexistent at worst," while probably true, is too POV. There are a lot of good sex-ed teachers out there.
  5. Not "every person pays property taxes." Only owners of real property do.
  6. You should consider mentioning that in some states, school taxes are subject to referenda, which increases the difficulty in raising funds. This is unique to the U.S.
  7. I think the following sentence is misleading: "Some states have a statewide school system, while others delegate power to county, city or township level school boards." I've never heard of a statewide school system. Perhaps every state has a state school board, but none of them actually provides the education. Note that in many states, school-district boundaries do not necessarily reflect local-government boundaries. Mwalcoff 07:52, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hawaii operates a unified public school system. Judge Magney 13:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object. Broadly speaking, I agree with the comments raised above. Articles with mild but pervasive POV, which I think applies here, can be a pain to fix. It's nice that the article has a "References" section, but we definitely need more footnotes or parenthetical citations in the text which tell which reference was used for a particular piece. Anville 19:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strong object. Too many of the discussions of substantive matters are superficial and inadequate. The suggestion that "circus families" represent a paradigm for home schooling is ridiculous (and empirically unfounded). I doubt that "most" high and middle schools actually have programs for "gifted" students, and have seen many reports that such programs have been steadily eroded by fiscal constraints. The section on "special needs" students is unsalvageably misguided, and shows no familiarity with applicable laws and practices. The comments regarding the relative quality of public and private colleges are unsourced, and show little more than the author's dubious opinion. The history section is particularly vacant, missing, among other seminal events, the Land Ordinance passed by the Continental Congress. Having said all this, it is essential, for fairness to the author/editor, that the standard of quality applied to featured article candidates involving American governmental functions and institutions has been erratic at best, and in general astonishingly lax; too many resemble high school term papers turned in to undemanding instructors. This article is no worse than several existing "featured articles." The standard needs to raised. Judge Magney 13:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What people like you have to realize is that articles can't grow indefinitely. Eventually, you have to say "well 45k is long enough" and that's all that's necessary. What do you mean the special needs section is unsalvageable? And most high schools have honors courses, if you think otherwise, you are misguided. I think you are obviously prejudiced, why would quality in American FAs be particularly lax?--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:05, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
I said the special needs section was unsalvageably bad because, inter alia, it does not include any reference to the governing federal legislation, manifests absolute ignorance of such fundamental notions as mainstreaming, least restrictive environment, and IEP, and shows no familiarity with the many sorts of identified disabilities that now trigger special education requirements. I also note that the article has been sanitized with regard to racial disparities in educational opportunities, and that the "history" section includes no references to racial segregation in American education, of the Brown decision and its aftermath. The sections of the text concerning governance and funding show not a trace of recognizing the distinction between independent and dependent school districts (the former have independent taxing authority; the latter must have their budget levels approved by other local authorities with general governmental powers). This is an exceptionally bad article, a poorly informed selection of peculiarly chosen comments that never achieves genuine coherence. In that regard, its brevity may be its greatest virtue. Judge Magney 03:34, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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