Do you like your system?

[YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer]

I'm in America, so our system for school placement is very different to England (I believe Scotland is similar to here). Where ever you live, your DC go to the school for that address. You never apply for schools (Unless you choose to go to Private School). You never worry about where you will end up, or if siblings will be split. No being upset that you did not get the same school as a friend (unless you, or they, move out of district) or choosing a school just because friends are going there. Every year I watch on this board (and the Primary board) the anxiety parents and kids go through in the lead up to decision day. Then the upset so many feel when they dont get the school they want. Being put on waiting lists and maybe having your school change (maybe even more then once) as offers come from waiting list schools. As an outsider looking in I always have to wonder "why do it this way?" So I'm curious, do you like your system? Or would you rather a system (like in America and apparently Scotland) where you just go to your local school and never have to think about which school you would get? (this is only in regards to public school, not private)

@zolla like everything in life it benefits the richer families in general. But not always. The town I live in has one High School. Everyone in town goes to it. It's actually a Private School, but the town pays the tuition to send all the kids there instead of funding their own High School. So the poorer families in town do get the same excellent education as the richer families. That being said, while there are lower income families here its not a large amount of them because it is mostly more expensive to live here. Also this set up is pretty unusual. Most places just fund their own schools, so richer towns have better funded schools then poorer towns. Cities can be different though too, I work in a city and it has 2 high schools. Both are equally funded and are very good schools. They split the city so that each school has kids from richer, average and poorer parts of the city. In that case money doesnt matter (unless you send your child Private of course), they all get the same level of education in the whole city. One thing I did hear about in regards to the High School in my town (the private one that 6 towns pay the tuition to go to), there are families that live in other towns (outside those 6) that will rent a small flat near the school so they can send their child there without paying the tuition. I honestly have no idea what the tuition is to go there (I suppose I could look it up) but I would think that it would be less then 4 years of rent but maybe not. But to be able to have a home in another town, and rent a flat in our town you have to obviously be a "richer family". I will add I think as long as they are paying the rent on the place they dont even have to prove they actually LIVE there to be able to register for the school. I dont think this happens a lot, but I've certainly heard about it happening. So, money does not always make a difference (like in the city I work in), but of course in general it does if a place does not split the kids equally among rich, average and lower incomes. But in smaller places it makes a huge difference. Rich town, better schools. Poor town, most likely not as good schools (dont want to say that is true for ALL poorer places, there are always exceptions of course). Looking back this is very rambling response but hope you understand what I'm getting at lol

I grew up in USA & my "public" school system wasn't how OP describes, actually. Not in 70s-80s. I went to school across the city a few times. There was an application system etc.

Anyway, English system is ok.

Where I live in England, most people just send their kids to local schools & don't have angst about it or consider schools further away. Not because our schools are good (they aren't) but because the parents aren't aspirational. There's a lot of horror when you hint the child could travel 6 miles to a school with better reputation "I want to keep them close!" I hear a lot.

What happens in the US if you move? Is your child forced to move high school even if you don't move that far? Or can they stay once they have started, assuming it is commutable.

@lljkk where did you grow up? Other then New York City which has this "apply for Middle School" set up I've never heard of other places that do this. But again, like I said previously, America is HUGE so I only know about the places I know. Very large cities may do things differently then smaller cities and towns. Are you talking about Charter Schools? I did not include them in my discussion because I did not want to make things too complicated with all the possible differences there are. I dont doubt your experience (especially if you are from a large city) just curious where you had to apply to get into a public school. Was this for all schooling (Elementary, Middle and High)? Or were you in an area that implemented busing? That was a big thing in some areas in the 70s and 80s. Not sure if busing is still going on these days.

@BendingSpoons I can only speak for my area of course. If you move out of your schools district you have to change school. Especially if you move to a new town/city. Sometimes if you move within a town/city and your new address is allocated a different school they may let you stay at your original school. But if you leave the School District (which is usually one town/city or a few smaller towns joined together) you need to change school. Like I said that is how it works in my area. America is huge and depending where you are they may have different rules on moving out of the school area.

**Though New York has higher population density level than London. Does the 'everyone to the catchment school' really work there. Or perhaps it works only with bussing?

Apparently you can choose school in New York:

steinhardt.nyu.edu/research-alliance/research/projects/high-school-choice-new-york-city

Other big cities in the US seem to have similar systems

@MonkeypuzzleClimber

**Though New York has higher population density level than London. Does the 'everyone to the catchment school' really work there. Or perhaps it works only with bussing?

Apparently you can choose school in New York:

steinhardt.nyu.edu/research-alliance/research/projects/high-school-choice-new-york-city

Other big cities in the US seem to have similar systems

I know New York has an "apply for Middle School" scheme. I would not be surprised to learn that other very large cities may have different ways of setting up schools. We also have things here called Charter Schools which I did not include in my original explanation, because I did not want to get things too complicated. But remember that most of America is not a giant city. Most of America is towns and small cities. I can only speak about the places I know about, but I do have friends all over the country so my knowledge is not completely limited to where I live.

One thing I don't understand about American schools is the use of GPA for university applications. I don't understand how assessments are standardised between schools to ensure that the GPA from one school isn't more generous than another. Are external exams not available in subjects other than SATs?

@Fridgeorflight

One thing I don't understand about American schools is the use of GPA for university applications. I don't understand how assessments are standardised between schools to ensure that the GPA from one school isn't more generous than another. Are external exams not available in subjects other than SATs?

Thats a good question that I never really thought about. Here in America the top classes are called AP courses. Those do have external exams that I believe are the same every where. They also are "weighted" more in a GPA. The harder the level of the class the more its worth. That way if you get a B in a AP Level class you are not getting a lower GPA then someone who gets an A in a class for kids with the lowest ability.

Here there are several different things you need to include in your application so they get a "bigger picture" of your abilities. It's not just one test (the SATS or ACT) or just the school work you did (GPA), its all of that. Plus Letters of Recommendation and the answers you give in your Essay questions. They also want to know about your extra curricular activities. My middle son was in National Honor Society (a group for well rounded high achieving high school students), this was a big plus for him. They want to know about what clubs and sports you belong to. What Community Service you do. They are generally looking for well rounded students. But every college/university is different of course. Some are much, much harder to get into. Others are really easy to get into. Most fall somewhere between the two.

The situation you describe does not exist across the states @YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer as you mentioned NYC I live in LA where your home school (the one you’re in catchment for) HAS to give every child in its catchment a place. BUT our local MS no family from my DS year went because frankly it’s crap and it sits under the intersection of two major freeways.

We had immense stress applying in 5th Grade for Middle Schools - we are in LAUSD but can’t apply for schools in Santa Monica or Culver City for example as they have their own districts. Our options were

1. The catchment “home” school
2. By lottery to charter schools
3. Using magnet points to get into either a full school or a specific program within a school
4. Applying under gifted and talented schemes for SAS programs within other schools
5. Private
6. Fine a way of getting into a smaller and better funded school district (eg if a parent works in Santa Monica you can apply to SM school even if you don’t live in the district) but you have to be released from your home district which is a ballache of paperwork

We applied to 4 charter schools, one school through magnet points (you can only apply to one and have to had accumulated magnet points throughout elementary which is itself a stupid and outdated system and relies on playing the game and knowing what the rules are) and to an SAS program. We didn’t get lottery places at any of the charter schools. If you get offered a magnet place you have to take it otherwise you lose all your accumulated magnet points which could be a problem when you get to HS.

I hate the American middle school system. The kids do English, history, maths and science then have one other subject - most schools you get an elective but I decided it was insane for my son not to learn a language so we put him into the magnet program so he doing a language as his 5th subject. This means he hasn’t had lessons in art, music, drama, RE, geography since elementary school. One of the many reasons we’re moving back to the U.K.!!

The system you describe is all well and good if you live in a small town with one school and it’s a good one but is def not the experience if you are in major metropolitan areas. If we’d fucked up on magnet points or he didn’t get high enough on OLSAT scores in 3rd grade then we’d be forced to go to the terrible “home” school where we live in catchment

Same goes for elementary - people buy houses to get their kids into the local school, our elementary has parents SLEEPING OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL up to 48 hours before applications open for those outside of the catchment to try to get a place.

@KobaniDaughters I did say (not in my op, but later) that I did not know for sure how it would work in very large cities. I didnt bring up Charter Schools (we do have them here, anyone can apply and they are picked by lottery). I had not even thought about Magnet schools. I have heard about them but will confess I have no idea how they work. The LA system sounds horrible.
I work in a Middle School and its very different to what you have described. Our kids have 7 classes a day. Math, Reading, Writing, Science and Social Studies. The other two classes are what we call UA (Unified Arts). For 8th Graders that can be a Full Year of Spanish or French (that earns you a credit at the high school). Any grade can also choose a Full Year of Band or Chorus (or a mix of Band and Chorus). Everyone has to take Health too (for one trimester, before they leave Middle School, usually taken in 7th Grade). We do Trimesters so other then the Full Year choices the UA classes change 3 times a year. We have PE, Tech Ed, FACS, Computers, Art, General Music (not band/chorus), 8th grade can also choose Guitar or Keyboarding lessons. Your system sounds awful. Middle School is when kids should be "testing their wings" giving everything a try before they head off to High School. I did say that America was huge and that I was sure things were not the same everywhere. It certainly seems things can be very, very different in even the most basic ways.

@YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer Yes I appreciate you did clarify that you live in your specific area in later posts, and I didn't mean to be antagonistic. I personally hate that the kids don't get exposed to all subjects in MS, if you want to do a language in my pretty huge area you have you to go to a magnet program or you have to commit to your elective always being a language, if you want to do music you have to commit to a full year doing orchestra or choir - but what if you don't sing or play an instrument, how do you get exposed? and in the meantime you don't get to do any other additional subject?

I can't wait for DS to go back to secondary school and do 14 subjects before reducing down to 9/10 for his GCSEs frankly

And yes, LAUSD is a shit show in a lot of ways but it's also the second largest school district in the country with not much money and a lot of children very low on the socio-economic scale to look after. Which is why is sucks that Santa Monica can give so much more to already very privileged families when you literally cross the road and you're in the next district

And don't even get me started on the parasitic nature of charter schools on inner city failing schools.....

@KobaniDaughters I honestly cant wrap my head around having to choose so young to go to a school just for an elective at such a young age. I live in New Hampshire (grew up in Mass). I'm glad we have the system we do here. Kids should get to try everything. My youngest son did not realize he wanted to be a chef until he took a cooking class in 8th Grade and loved it. He was then able to focus on the Culinary Program in High School. He graduated last June and now works in a Restaurant. If he had not had that class when he was younger who knows if he would have discovered he loved cooking and was actually pretty good at it. Coming from a place where you take 7 or 8 classes a year (well I guess actually its more if you break down that some are not full year classes) 14 classes sounds a bit overwhelming, but maybe its really not. Its just the same as our local Middle Schools where you have your main classes but also get to try all the different UAs you are interested in. Of course the really big difference comes in the last 4 years of school here in America and in England (GCSE years and 6th Form are very different to how American High School runs). I actually explained 6th Form to my son once and he actually thought that sounded a lot better then what we do here.

As for Charter Schools, I dont have a ton of experience with them. What I do know is that they are suppose to be "random lottery" here, but doesnt seem to be too "random" from what I've seen. Also around here they dont like to take any kids with an IEP. They are funded with the same money that funds the regular public schools so they should have to take a cross section of kids with different abilities. Funny how only the "best of the best" ever seem to win the "lottery".

@KobaniDaughters oh, also wanted to add I did not think you were being antagonistic. As someone who works in the public school system its something I'm very interested in. Hearing about how things are different (or how a lot is also universally the same with kids), not just in other countries, but within the USA is something I love to learn about.

@YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer yeah sorry, I’ve found the whole system post elementary (and actually in elementary as well considering the only schools that get things like art and music teachers and science labs and dedicated computer teacher are ones that can fundraiser from parents to get them) very frustrating.

Re your son doing cookery - what if a school doesn’t offer that as an elective? Because I don’t think any of the MS my son’s friends are at offer it whereas in most schools in the U.K. you get to do food tech when doing the design and technology classes - my son has already decided to do it at GCSE. The fact that it’s not compulsory to learn a language ever beggars belief - especially here in California where Spanish is spoken EVERYWHERE

Hilariously I actually think High School is better for a lot of kids than 6th form, it sucks to reduce your classes to 3/4 at aged 16 especially for all rounders who don’t know what they want to do when they grow up!

@KobaniDaughters schools in California are so different then the schools here in New England. Art and Music classes are standard around here. In my area the cooking class is part what we call FACS class (Family & Consumer Science). I cant say if all schools in this area have this but they do in the city I work in, and in the town I live in (both in New Hampshire). It makes me sad to hear that there are places where kids have such limited choices. I'm so glad my 3 sons had the chance to try so many things. Of course once my youngest got to High School he was able to get into the Culinary Program which involved working in a commercial kitchen with a restaurant attached to it. While it is not compulsory to learn a language here, you do need at least 2 years to get into most colleges. My two oldest boys did Spanish and my youngest son took ASL (American Sign Language) as his foreign language. I love that that was an option and wish they had had that when I was in school. I think the reason my youngest loved the sound of 6th Form was because he knew he was interested in Culinary so he would much rather have just focused on only 3 classes instead of having to take 7 classes those last two years. But I agree it must be hard for kids who dont know what they want to do yet, which is not a surprise at such a young age that they may not really know yet.

As with anything when discussing the US, it’s such a vast country with vast differences and I can’t even tell you what it’s like in California, just Los Angeles!! So I might gently suggest your opening post is a tad misleading as certainly the system you describe (which does sound great by the way) definitely doesn’t exits across the whole country

I guess with any system for further education it won’t suit everyone! I personally wish I’d been able to do 5-6 A’levels but my DH was perfectly happy with his over eager maths 3 options!

I don't like the secondary school system at all. Schools are much too big and there is far too much pressure on teenagers to do well, and the system is failing so many pupils. There is a mental health crisis in this age group. We need to have a complete rethink of the education system in this country as Finland did years ago, and now has an excellent system that works for students and in terms of results globally.

Sadly, we have a government who'd rather piss away money on Brexit and is not interested in putting the money into schools.

Aren't American HS huge though? Only one for a whole town means they'd have to be. In comparison, there are 90 kids in DD year.

I'm in Ireland and secondary applications are serious work. There are 7 secondaries in my town, but you have to apply to each separately and they all want different info and are on different time lines. And all have their own unique admission rules. Many of them are oversubscribed now and lotteries for places are very common. Thankfully we got DD into a coed school so have automatic sibling priority. My friend has no place for her DC as she missed one deadline and didn't get into any other school. There is a community secondary which is obliged to take all, if you apply
But there is epic snobbery about them in many areas.

Parents selecting schools was introduced in the The Education Reform Act of 1988, under Thatcher. The believe was it would introduce a market in education, with better schools growing and lesser ones failing; it wasn't aimed at improving the lot of the pupils but was about introducing political dogma into education.
It was popular with the middle classes who could use it to ensure their children went to the 'right' school, plus a dog whistle to those who didn't want their children to mix with people from different cultures, as these were the core of Tory voters it was deemed a success.

@YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer, San Diego. Apparently they pioneered the magnet system for voluntary racial integration. Seems to me that LA had mandatory bussing, not popular. You could sign up for your local school but were encouraged to go into the magnet system, from about start 3rd grade. So busses everywhere. Also attended an across town special programme in elementary for other reasons for one year, our parents transported us for that.

My USA relatives in last 20 years, only the poor ones simply send their kids to local school. All the others seem to have gone on alternative path. Home schooling (some for religious reasons, others anticharter / antivacc ), "no school is good enough" -> Montessori private, Catholic private .... A lot of Catholic private. I perceive a lot of angst.

What everyone actually wants (everywhere) is for their local school to be a good one. This is the ideal.

What everyone actually wants (everywhere) is for their local school to be a good one. This is the ideal.

I agree.

This has been really interesting OP, thank you for starting the thread, though it has turn a bit into an AMA for you. It shows that the 'simple' US system isn't always as simple too and as always the organised/richer parents get more choice in reality.

Do all US schools have to do the Pledge of Allegiance daily?

90% of England probably just gets on with schools similarly to the US. Just the 10% are very vocal on MN (especially London private & Grammar kids).

We are actually moving to the states to get away from the education system here before our son enters school. While I know the us system is changing since I grew up there, they start formal education a whole year early here, against all research findings 🙄. Plus the inane emphasis on handwriting, it seems so tedious. My husband is on SLT at an indie here, and we both think the American experience sounds far preferable--that said, as has been pointed out the American system is so variable based on the state you are in... Where we are moving, by 6th grade you have a vast variety of electives to choose from every year (2-4/year in grade 6-8, alongside timetables extra curricular classes after lunch) ranging from creative writing to modern dance, and in high school you can actually have up to eight elective classes in a year by senior year. This could be leadership, entrepreneurship, studio art, modern dance, yearbook, university style niche history/humanities classes, or even a media class that produces a TV show on the local cable access channel. As someone mentioned, no, we don't have standardised tests for all subjects and this is GREAT. There actually is no need to rank students in the way the UK does or make university so elitist, any student that can learn and pass at university level gets the opportunity. School is not stressful, school is fun, students develop a love of learning, explore their interests in the classroom, have an education that is truly tailored to what they love and are allowed to be kids without stressing and worrying about nonsensical exams that involve far too much rote memorization and exam taking technique, all of which has no real world value. It's great that the IB is becoming more popular here, but the UK system is so focused on keeping the rich at the top of the exam tables that it has sacrificed focusing on the whole point of education, which is to learn and to learn to love learning.

What happens if you get a big birth year in an area? Do the classes just get bigger to accommodate the kids? I like the fact class sizes are capped, and guess the shifting school catchment are a consequence of that.

@MaizeAmaze

What happens if you get a big birth year in an area? Do the classes just get bigger to accommodate the kids? I like the fact class sizes are capped, and guess the shifting school catchment are a consequence of that.

Where I'm from, I don't know if this is country wide, class sizes are capped. They would hire another teacher and reduce class sizes. In general, class sizes where I'm from (central US, low cost of living, high quality of life, even though many are on very low salaries) are much lower than state schools here.

For example, in my experience, when I started kindergarten, it was a new school. By the time I had reached third grade, the school began development of a new wing to introduce four new classrooms, and by the time I was in fourth grade, they began work on four more classrooms. The school still felt like a small school, it was designed well to keep the older kids and younger kids in separate parts of the building, with small classes but ample space for recess (three playgrounds with basketball courts, 'four square' courts and tether ball courts. The kids at my school came from three major neighbourhoods, all very close together. There were maybe a dozen elementary schools in my home town, four middle schools and two high schools (1400-1700 students in each high school).