美国教育制度英文

The System of American Education

Abstract: Compared with other big powers in the world, the United Sates of America is a very young country in the history of the world. Its education started too late, but whose development is very rapid. In fact, American educational system plays an important role in this situation.

Keyword: American; system; education

The United States is very strong in education and shoulders huge task of education. To discuss education in the United States is a very complicated problem, because it is a multicultural country. American education is also diverse reflecting on the education, there is no unified national education system in the United States and fifty states have 50 different education system. There is no doubt that mang people pay much attention to the system of American education. The major difference in education system between American and most other countries is that the education of the United States is for everyone in society, not only for a few people. American educational system can be best understood as a kind of social institutions that reflect the basic beliefs and fundamental principles of the nation, rather than simply a kind of skill-training places where students are prepared to get a job.[1] All in all, the system of American education has its own special features and attract a lot of countries’ attention.

I. The History of American education

As one of the basic contents of social life, education has a close relationship with one nation’s growth. There were many people graduated from Oxford College and

Cambridge College between the first English settlers to America in the colonial era of 17th century. It is estimated that there is a college student out of every 40 to 50 families. This immigration of higher education background made them attach great importance to education. And the early immigrants from England needed a kind of culture to help them understand The Bible by themselves because of their devotion to religion. These two factors made the education of America start. Harvard College was founded as early as 1636, only fifteen years after the Pilgrim Fathers had landed in the New World.[2] William Mary university was built in 1639 and Yale university was established in 1701. Before 1776 when America declared independence from Great Britain, eight other colleges came into existence.[3] All these indicate that Americans have shown a great concern for education since early colonial times. Between 1825 and 1850, public education was established in America. All states were built basic education system which was open to all children States and without religious discrimination and the basis of economic conditions. Many public universities and colleges also appeared and they enriched the education of America along with a large number of private colleges.

II. The S tructure of School System

The American education of all types and at all levels join each other in structure and communicate with each other up and down. At any rate, from elementary school through college, Americans hold the belief that everyone deserves a fair and equal opportunity to get a good education, and that part of the responsibility of the government is to make sure that such an opportunity is not denied to any one of them.[4] One of the striking features, differ American education system from other European countries’ education system, call a monorail system. It formed in the second half of the 19th century and can be specifically divided into the bottom-up structure:

primary school, secondary school, and then university. "Rail" is the number of class in one grade.

The current school system of America education also reflects the feature of the combination of unity and diversity. Due to a thorough system of decentralization in education, America has no unified national educational current system of America education is basically fallen into following parts : elementary education and secondary education for 12 years, 4 years of higher education, and graduate school, the total course of 20 years or so. There are many different kinds of preschool education institutions in America. No matter public or private, it can be roughly divided into nursery school (for children aged 3 ~ 5) and the kindergarten (recruit children aged 4 ~ 6); Elementary education is distributed into public education and private education, which pays attention to develop the potential of children; There are mainly four years, six years to construct and three kinds of three-thirds system in secondary school in America. Its main part is the comprehensive school and its minor part are the general education and vocational and technical education. Besides, there are also separate secondary schools, vocational and technical schools, says middle school and other high school; The lessons of higher education colleges and universities in America are divided into four categories: a two-year college (community college) (tertiary), liberal arts college (four-year college), universities and professional schools.[5]

III. The Education Management

American education management implements the high degree of decentralization. In America, the education management is the responsibility of the state or local government, rather than the federal government. As early as in 1791, the 10th amendment of the constitution of America has been defined, the federal

government does not have the permission to manage education and education is charged by the states. The powers of the ministry of education in American federal government are very limited, whose main responsibility is to distribute education grants to the states according to the intentions of congress, as well as offer scholarships to American domestic students. The states of America are equipped with the education minister who are in charge of drawing up the state's education policy and lead the subordinate organizations to implement these policies. While according to the state law, all states mostly give the management right of public school to the local school districts, in addition to set up the state board of education and make the basic policy of education’s development. Therefore, the management right of elementary education and secondary education actually belongs to the local school districts and the local public school management system in which the school district plays the leading role ha been established.[6] American universities all have their own characteristics and they are different from the teaching guidelines, professional Settings, test project to small problems such as admission to the TOEFL scores and application fee and so on.

IV. The Goals and Purposes of Education

Historically, the chief aim of education in early times was literacy in order that people might be able to read and write the Bible and laws. When the republic was founded, literacy was still a primary objective, but for the new purpose of fulfilling the obligations of citizenship in the new country. Under the new system, each individual citizen was obligated to vote according to his own opinions and conscience, and to take part in the discussion and decision making at local, state, and national levels. As the nation grew in population and in territory, as its economy expanded, and particularly as the industrial revolution changed the complexity of life and citizenship, education grew