SIC 8211
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS



This category includes elementary and secondary schools furnishing academic courses, ordinarily for kindergarten through grade 12. It includes both public and private institutions and encompasses parochial schools, boarding schools, vocational high schools, and schools providing special services for physically and mentally handicapped students.

NAICS Code(s)

611110 (Elementary and Secondary Schools)

Industry Snapshot

By the early 2000s, elementary and secondary education in the United States was characterized by the growing emphasis on technological access and education in order to boost the educational quality and attainment levels of U.S. students and to prepare them for a future in a rapidly evolving technological work environment. As the public school system continued to receive its share of criticism, alternatives such as charter schools were enjoying increased popularity.

About 53 million students attended elementary and secondary schools in the United States during the early 2000s. In 1999-2000, these students attended 92,012 public schools and 27,223 private schools. Of these, some 80,661 were elementary and 24,903 were secondary. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools was 46.9 million in 1999. Levels were projected to reach 47.4 million by 2002, and record growth was expected to continue for public schools through 2005. The fastest growth is occurring in the secondary grades, fueled by strong elementary school enrollment levels during the late 1990s. Enrollment in elementary and middle schools increased from 29.9 million in 1990 to approximately 33.6 million in 2001. Public high schools grew from 11.3 million in 1990 to 13.6 million in 2001. High schools account for 24.3 percent of all public schools and 28.5 percent of enrollment.

About 6.2 million students participated in programs for the disabled in 1999-2000. This represented some 13 percent of students, an increase from 1990-91 when students with disabilities constituted 11 percent of the population. About 60 percent of all public elementary and secondary schools students are white, whereas Hispanic students account for 18 percent, and African Americans make up 17 percent. Only a fraction of the student population was Asian American or Native American.

Approximately 6 million students attended private elementary or secondary schools in the early 2000s, representing 11 percent all students. The total number of such schools was 27,223 in 1999-2000, up from 24,690 in 1990-91. Catholic schools accounted for 48.6 percent of these students (though only 29.8 percent of those schools); other religious schools accounted for 35.7 percent, and nonsectarian schools claimed a 15.7 percent share. The proportion of students in private schools has changed little in recent years.

The expenditures of public schools in the elementary and secondary grades were estimated to total $358 billion for the 2002 fiscal year, up from $338 billion in 2001. In recent years local authorities provided approximately 45 percent of school revenues, state governments provided about 48 percent, and the federal government supplied some 7 percent. Average per pupil expenditures amounted to $7,524 in the 2001-02 school year, up from an estimated $7,079 the previous year and $6,409 in 1990-91.

All 50 states have compulsory education statutes requiring children to attend school. Although such regulations vary state by state, in general attendance is mandated to begin by a specified age (typically between 5 and 8 years old) and children are required to remain in school until a specified age (typically between 14 and 18 years old) or until high school graduation is achieved.

Enrollment trends observed during the early 1990s led to projections of increased enrollment through the mid-2000s. The increase in elementary school enrollment will continue to be the most pronounced for several years but will taper off relative to secondary schools as those students reach high-school age. By 2009, an estimated 54.5 million students are expected to be enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in the United States, a figure analysts claim will necessitate about 6,000 new schools. Between fall 1996 and fall 2006, public enrollment was projected to grow by 2 percent, while public secondary school enrollment was expected to rise by 15 percent.

Organization and Structure

In the United States, schools are arranged into districts. Regular school districts are defined as those providing free public elementary and secondary education for the children living within them. Each school district functions under the auspices of a state-level regulatory agency and is responsible for the oversight and operation of the schools within its geographic boundaries. According to figures compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 14,928 regular school districts within the United States during the 1999 to 2000 school year, down from 15,358 in 1990 to 1991. This decrease reflects school district consolidation and reorganization in order to achieve greater efficiency in delivery of public school services. Over the long term, this trend is dramatically more pronounced; in 1930 there were more than 262,000 public elementary and secondary schools.

During the early 2000s, the nation's five largest districts were New York City; Los Angeles Unified; City of Chicago Schools; Dade County, Florida; and Broward County, Florida. In recent years, large metropolitan cities were home to about one out of every eight elementary schools, but one out of six students. Districts with student populations of more than 25,000 accounted for only 1.1 percent of the nation's school districts but served 30 percent of the nation's public school students. California and Texas led the nation with respect to the number of school districts, each reporting more than 1,000 districts. From 1970 through the 1990s, the percentage distribution of public elementary and secondary school enrollment increased in the South and the West but declined in both the Midwest and Northeast.

Different types of schools were established to serve students with different needs. According to U.S. Department of Education, in recent years approximately 98 percent of the nation's public schools were regular schools. The remaining schools offered special services such as vocational, alternative, or special education. Alternative schools were often operated in conjunction with regular schools and provided options for students whose needs were unmet in regular classroom settings. Special education schools provided adapted curriculum to meet the needs of students with specific disabilities such as physical, emotional, or mental impairments. The nation's vocational schools focused on providing education and training in semiskilled or technical occupations. Regular schools, moreover, often provide programs such as those offered at these different types of institutions in addition to their standard course load.

Background and Development

Education involves the process of transferring information from one generation to the next. Its origins are inseparable from the origins of civilization. Throughout history humankind has been concerned with the process of maintaining culture, preserving mores, and stimulating minds. The ancients passed on religious information; early science instruction took the form of indoctrination in the magical arts; and oral literary traditions developed before words were ever written down.

The roots of Western education can be traced to the ancient Greeks. Historians credited the Greeks with developing the study of science, art, literature, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Greek schools were designed to prepare the sons of Greek citizens for citizenship. This purpose represented a departure from older forms of education that focused on specialized instruction, such as the training of skilled craftsmen, priests, or government officials.

The expansion of the ensuing Roman Empire paved the way for the development of education throughout Europe. Roman schools consisted of three levels: elementary, secondary, and higher. Elementary schools taught reading, writing, morality, conduct, counting, and calculating. Secondary schools taught literature, language, astronomy, geometry, and ethics. Students in higher education learned rhetoric, mathematics, music, history, and law. The study of these subjects enabled students to lead effective public lives.

Christian schools, dating back to the second century, were developed to teach new believers about the doctrines, discipline, and morals of the church. Other religious schools were developed to teach theology, philosophy, and science. As early as the fourth century, controversy arose concerning the conflict between the pagan influence in Roman schools and the teachings of the Christian church. Gradually, the pagan schools closed and the center of learning shifted to monasteries. Monastic schools were devoted to preparing students for careers with the church. Pupils were taught discipline, and they received instruction in subjects such as Latin, music, grammar, composition, record keeping, law, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Advanced students also studied higher mathematics and science. The emperor Charlemagne (742 to 814) was credited with revitalizing education. He opened schools for common children and ordered priests to offer free instruction to anyone who came to learn letters.

Following the Middle Ages, Europe saw a rise in universities where students could receive instruction in the arts, law, medicine, and theology. The Renaissance brought a revival of classical studies combined with Christian ideals. Formal education focused on cultivating the mind and the body. In the New World, colonists copied the European model but lacked established institutions and had to build a structure for education. Early opportunities were limited to apprenticeships, schools for practical instruction in mathematics and surveying, and instruction in reading and religion. College-bound students could arrange for training in Latin grammar.

Private schools in America developed during the eighteenth century, and, following the Revolutionary War, the nation turned its attention to the idea of public education. Legislation in 1785 required new townships to set aside land for public education. Massachusetts was the first state to pass a compulsory education statute. Enacted in 1852, the law required that children between the ages of 8 and 14 attend school 12 weeks per year and that 6 of the 12 weeks had to be consecutive. As the complexity of public education grew, states created positions for superintendents. By 1861, 30 of the existing states and organized territories had state-level school officials. During the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, education reform spread from the North into the South. During the 1869-70 school year, 6.9 million students were enrolled in the nation's public elementary and secondary schools. The average school year was 132.2 days long, and the average number of days attended per pupil was 78.4 days. The system employed 201,000 people as supervisors, principals, teachers, and other nonsupervisory instructional staff. The average annual salary was $189.

At the end of the nineteenth century, primary education focused on the fundamentals of reading and mathematics and on the development of specific character qualities such as honesty and patriotism. Industrial expansion and growing middle-class ambition brought with them increased interest in expanding participation in the educational process.

Fundamental changes in educational philosophy occurred with the dawning of the twentieth century. A new attitude emerged, characterized by the challenging of long-established traditions. The early years of the 1900s saw educational expansion in the sciences, modern languages, and history. The process of scientific inquiry ushered in an era of questioning that included the close examination of ideas and customs. John Dewey made a significant impact on the development of educational philosophy in the United States. Dewey's many written works included The School and Society and Democracy & Education. Dewey espoused the notion that the purpose of education was not to prepare students for future life but that it was part of an ongoing experience leading to social progress and reform. A Deweyan teacher was not one who merely educated a child, but one who changed society. Dewey's principles were promoted by the Progressive Education Association (PEA), which was founded in 1919. The PEA dissolved in the mid-1950s because its aims had largely been adopted by mainstream educators.

During the time between World War I and World War II, American educational establishments focused on expanding and providing universal secondary education. As a result, high school attendance increased from 915,000 during the 1909-10 school year to more than 4.4 million in 1929-30, and to 6.6 million by 1939-40. The increasing numbers of students involved in secondary education during the 1930s led to an expansion in course offerings. High schools, which had traditionally offered classes intended to prepare students for higher education, added courses in general education, commercial and industrial arts, and home economics.

Following World War II and through the 1950s, the American educational system was characterized by many changes. Rapid increases in enrollment occurred as children born in the post World War II era began entering elementary schools. In 1954 the Supreme Court's Brown v Board of Education decision opened the way for racial integration. Curriculum changes reflected the intensified competition between Communist and Western nations, placing a heavy emphasis on scientific investigation and innovation. As a result, in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act to encourage the study of science, mathematics, foreign languages, and technology.

During the 1960s, school enrollment continued to climb. As mainstream education centered on programmed instruction, alternate programs based on the Montessori method experienced a revival. This educational philosophy was based on the work of Maria Montessori (1870 to 1952), an Italian educator. Montessori believed that education should encourage spontaneity and activity and that children needed freedom to develop. Legislative initiatives also impacted education during the decade. In 1964 the National Defense Education Act was expanded to include English, social sciences, and reading. Congress also passed the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964, intended to expand the availability of educational opportunities in disadvantaged areas. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was enacted as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The purpose of ESEA was to give federal support to schools located in low-income communities. ESEA made provisions for the funding of counseling, remedial education, and experimental classes. In subsequent years, ESEA was expanded to include help for migrant, neglected, delinquent, non-English speaking, and other children with special needs. The education establishment also saw a shift back to classes focused on preparing students for life experiences during the 1960s. Courses were provided in areas such as community involvement, job performance, citizenship, and family life.

Educators of the 1970s were challenged by rapid changes in society and technology. The prevailing educational philosophy was characterized by a "back to basics" attitude. Critics charged that such an emphasis forced educators to focus on low-level skills and test children in accordance with minimum standards rather than striving to achieve excellence. Another challenge of the decade was the expansion of special services for handicapped children. In 1975 Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The act required school districts to identify students with special needs and provide educational opportunities for them. The four most commonly identified dysfunctions were learning disabilities, speech and language impairments, mental handicaps, and emotional disturbances. In the 1976-77 school year, 8.3 percent of the nation's children were served by special programs. By 1993-94, the most recent tabulation, the number had increased to 12 percent. The most significant increases were among children identified as learning disabled.

Although the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was intended to help foster educational opportunities for all students, it drew criticism during the late 1980s and early 1990s as courts interpreted its provisions to mean that school districts were required to pay for educational and support services irrespective of a child's ability to benefit from any education provided. Critics of the courts' actions claimed, without success, that the decisions placed an undue burden on school districts and that the cost of providing services for the severely disabled should be transferred to health care agencies.

During the early 1980s, a federal report titled A Nation at Risk analyzed the education system and concluded that schools were not doing an adequate job. The report led to the development of school reform efforts that continued into the 1990s. As a result, between 1982 and the early 1990s, 47 states instituted more stringent student testing practices, 42 implemented higher graduation requirements, and 39 established programs to test teachers. Changes were also made in vocational education philosophy. The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 (Perkins Act) was aimed at restructuring vocational education through the integration of broad-based academic requirements. Because only 27 percent of secondary students completing high school with a major in a technical area ever worked in a related field, and because American workers generally changed occupations four to six times during a lifetime, the narrow training given to students in vocational programs was judged inadequate. Critics claimed it provided only obsolete skills that were not transferable. Under the provisions of the Perkins Act, vocational programs were required to help students experience and understand all aspects of an industry with the aim that graduating students be prepared to take an active role in community development.

Problems with vocational education were also raised by critics who claimed that a shortage of skilled workers would render the United States unable to remain competitive in the global economy. Some educators advocated the development of a high-tech preparatory program that would include provisions for transition into the work world through apprenticeships or would prepare students for further study at two-year community or technical colleges.

In addition to the problems associated with low academic achievement, schools continued to face challenges related to drug abuse and violence. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the proportion of public and private high school seniors who reported ever using an illicit drug rose from 55 percent in 1975 to 66 percent in 1981. After 1981, that proportion fell to 41 percent in 1992 but rose again to 48 percent in 1995. The proportion of high school seniors who had ever used cocaine fell from 17 percent in 1985 to 6 percent in 1995. Alcohol remained the most often used drug with the proportion of seniors who had used alcohol within the past 30 days declining from 72 percent in 1980 to 51 percent in 1995. Cigarette and smokeless tobacco use increased from ninth to twelfth grades for all categories. However, alcohol, marijuana, and illegal drug use on school property increased for boys while it declined for girls.

As the education establishment entered the 1990s, efforts aimed at improving learning opportunities for all of America's children intensified. The number of high school graduates in 1997 and 1998 totaled about 2.7 million. Americans 25 years old and older holding high school diplomas or GED credentials increased from 69 percent to 82 percent between 1990 and 1977. The dropout rate at U.S. high schools fell from 14 percent in 1977 to 11 percent 20 years later.

The 1990s were plagued by negative public perceptions about schools and inconsistent measurements of student achievement. For example, school records indicated that an increasing number of students were taking college preparatory classes in math, English, science, and social studies—up from 37.9 percent in 1982 to almost 50 percent in 1996. Moreover, state governments placed a great deal of emphasis on increasing standards, indicative of the heightened primacy of scholastic assessment tests, both in evaluating school performance and for students entering colleges and advanced learning programs. But educators argued about the effect of these measures. SAT scores remained flat through the 1990s, still far below their mid-1960s peak, despite the fact that students taking advanced-placement courses in high school grew from 5 percent of seniors in 1984 to 13.1 percent in 1997. Geography and history performance among students at all levels remain dismal by international standards. In mathematics, 9-and 13-year-olds demonstrated improved skills in numeric operations between 1977 and 1997, whereas performance remained flat for the remainder of the 1990s. Meanwhile, more complex mathematical skills among 17-year-olds continued their 20-year disappointment though 1997, by which time complex procedures and reasoning were only proficiently tackled by 59 percent of high-school 17-year-olds, while adequacy in multistep algebra was beyond the grasp of 93 percent of that age group.

Attempts aimed at increasing the quality of science education focused on curriculum changes. One program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, provided obligatory units of science in each grade progressing from basic measurements in ninth grade to abstract and theoretical studies in the higher grades. This proposal was intended to replace traditional science studies in which students, on an elective basis, enrolled in biology in tenth grade, chemistry in eleventh grade, and physics in twelfth grade. Under traditional science programs, statistics for 1994 graduates revealed that although 94 percent had taken biology, only 56 percent had taken chemistry and only 24 percent had taken physics, though the average number of science courses completed in high school rose from 2.2 in 1980 to 3 in 1994.

Reading proficiency was another area of concern. The reading level among 9-and 13-year-olds improved markedly between 1970 and 1995, but little of the change occurred after 1980. By 1996, the reading level of high-school 17-year-olds was unchanged since 1971, and writing levels declined gradually over that period. A Department of Education Study in the late 1990s reported that only 1 in 4 students sampled across fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades met the Department's standards of writing proficiency for those levels.

Despite improvements made by African Americans and other minorities over the last 30 years, minority students continued to score below white students in many standardized tests and educational assessments. In 1996, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in reading suggested that minority groups were beginning to lose some of the earlier gains they had made relative to whites. The problem was heightened by the fact that minority students were statistically in the majority at 22 of the nation's largest 25 school districts. In such schools, classroom sizes tended to be larger and the level of economic prosperity markedly lower. Moreover, studies have revealed a positive correlation between students' levels of educational performance and the level of parents' educational attainment. According to statements made by the U.S. Department of Education, school reforms made under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act "seldom triggered the kinds of transforming that our schools need—particularly in economically disadvantaged communities."

Many school problems were associated with economically disadvantaged students. According to statistics, tenth-grade students from districts with high rates of poverty were found to have dropout rates twice as high as those from schools in districts with little poverty. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that more than 50 percent of the students in schools containing the nation's highest concentrations of poverty were judged to be low achievers. In schools with the least poverty, only about 10 percent of the students were judged to be low achievers. Because of the ramifications of poverty on education, 30 states were involved in lawsuits over disparities in education spending created by differences in local property taxes during the mid-1990s. In two states, Alabama and Massachusetts, the courts ruled that disparities in school funding violated the states' constitutions.

In an effort to increase the quality of education for the economically disadvantaged, the Clinton Administration in 1994 reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 and passed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, aimed at setting exacting standards for poorer students that matched those for their more advantaged counterparts. Federal resources were thus directed toward helping states implement these performance standards. Texas, for instance, achieved among the highest gains in National Assessment of Educational Progress performance and further closed achievement levels between minority and white students.

Such measures were not without detractors, however. Critics of such educational spending proposals argued that states with the highest per-pupil spending had the lowest test scores. Instead of increasing financial assistance to schools, these analysts recommended core changes in school structure and curricula. Social scientists attribute much of the white-minority differences in achievement not only to poverty but also to the lower average educational levels of their parents. Although it is difficult for schools to compensate for such disadvantages, there is evidence that extraordinary schools and teachers make a difference in how all students perform. Research on early intervention and one-to-one tutoring suggests that at-risk students can achieve far higher levels and that taking more challenging courses is related to higher performance and achievement.

Other tools influencing student achievement are electronic computers and Internet access. By 1998, 89 percent of public schools were plugged into the Internet, an increase of 11 percent from a year earlier; only 35 percent of public schools were connected in 1994. Thus the elementary and secondary school systems were closing in on the Clinton administration's goal of connecting all schools to the Internet by 2000. Nonetheless, schools in impoverished areas remained the least likely to maintain Internet access. In other technological developments, more than 90 percent of all elementary and secondary schools utilized computers in classrooms (as opposed to only in a separate computer room), whereas the number of students per computer dropped from 45.3 in the 1985-86 school year to 7.4 in 1996-97. A growing number of schools also maintained local area networks (LANs), CD-ROMs, and even satellite dishes. The Department of Education further maintained the Star Schools Program, which provided education at a distance by utilizing telecommunications to transmit video and interactive instruction, reaching about 1.6 million students.

School districts entered into periods of restructuring through the 1990s. Some individual schools were stepping up efforts to make the educational process more efficient and more profitable to students. For example, some schools experimented with having teachers move up with students so that students did not have to lose instruction time during the beginning of the school year as they adjusted to new teachers.

In addition to efforts to make the educational system more profitable to students, a growing movement was geared toward generating profits for the schools themselves. More than 200 for-profit schools were in operation in 1999, enrolling about 100,000 students. Edison Schools, based in New York, generated $217 million in revenues. Edison is also an expansion franchise, growing from four schools in 1995 to 79 schools across 16 states in 2000. By 2006 the company expected to operate 423 schools and enroll 260,000 students, for revenues of $1.8 billion in sales. Overall, a Merrill Lynch and Company analyst predicted that U.S. for-profit schools could maintain 10 percent of the elementary-school market by 2009.

Unsurprisingly, the trend toward profitability in the school system met with ethical concerns. While proponents of the trend argued that financial competitiveness would force schools to increase their efficiency and standards, essentially to offer a more superior product than their competitors, critics feared that the profit motive inherent in such moves would drastically alter the type of education students received, inviting companies to gear learning toward their economic interests and advertising.

The influence of commercialism in U.S. elementary and secondary schools is hardly limited to for-profit institutions, however. In order to garner increased funding to compensate for tight budgets and to gain a competitive edge, schools have sought investment from companies looking to peddle their products inside the schools. Zapme! Corp., for instance, donated computer equipment and software to schools in exchange for information about students that the company could use in marketing campaigns; meanwhile, the computers themselves displayed advertisements in the corner of the screen for companies such as PCGames.com, Amazon.com, and Lego. Channel One, a commercial-supported education channel introduced in 1991 and received in 12,000 U.S. schools, included advertisements for acne medicine, breakfast cereals, candy, and other youth-oriented products in addition to shoe and apparel brands such as Nike and Gap.

The cola wars, meanwhile, shifted their battle ground to U.S. schools. Coca-Cola and Pepsi increasingly enjoyed "official drink" status at schools, in which the companies installed soda-dispenser machines in exchange for investing funds. This trend achieved a degree of notoriety in 1998 when an Atlanta high school student was suspended from school for wearing a Pepsi t-shirt on "Coca-Cola Day." Such reports raised the eyebrows of many educators, claiming that the influence of commercial enterprises had extended too far. The city of San Francisco prohibited its schools from contracting with beverage and snack companies.

Public schools also investigated the concept of charter schools. Charter schools are public schools set up to function independently of state regulation (except in regard to civil rights, health and safety, and financial accountability). Proponents of charter schools claimed that the concept provides administrators with the freedom to offer the types of programs best suited to their students. The nation's first state-sanctioned charter school, City Academy, opened in St. Paul, Minnesota, in September 1992. Cleveland joined Milwaukee's six-year-old program of 1,700 students. In this program, the private schools are not allowed to choose their students, however. By 1999 more than 30 states had passed charter-school legislation, and 160,000 students were educated in about 720 such schools. Nearly 35 percent of all charter-school students lived in California, followed by Arizona, with 15 percent, although Arizona had the highest proportion of its population enrolled in charter schools. According to studies, about 70 percent of charter schools were created to realize a vision of education that was alternative to that provided by the public-school system.

Home schooling, likewise, became increasingly attractive during the 1990s. The growth of home schooling follows years of negative perception of the public-school system. While home schooling traditionally was relegated to fringe religious groups, the practice has become increasingly common and mainstream. Strong performance results as measured by SAT scores and other standardized test have gained wide recognition. A precise figure is difficult to come by, but most observers agree that the total number of home-schooled students in 1999 lay somewhere between the Department of Education's estimate of 750,000 and home-schooling advocates' figure of 1.5 million.

School safety achieved a high priority in the late 1990s after a string of high-profile school shootings involving juvenile assailants. Public schools reported 6,093 expulsions for possession of firearms during 1996-97, whereas 57 percent of public elementary schools reported at least one incident of crime or violence that required reporting to officials (including police officers) outside the school. Moreover, 10 percent of public schools reported at least one serious crime, a classification that includes murder, rape, sexual battery, suicide, physical attack, fighting with a weapon, and robbery. Urban schools were twice as likely to experience incidences of violent crime. Particularly following the large-scale shooting at a high school in Littleton, Colorado, legislators debated fiercely over a range of issues relating to juvenile violence and schooling, ranging from gun control, enhanced punishment of juvenile offenders, and heightened disciplinary measures. Most broadly, the issue has triggered a wave of zero-tolerance rules, including sharp disciplinary action by school administrators for incidences, both inside and outside of the school, of dress and speech deemed inappropriate.

Educators came under criticism by some who claimed that by focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students they were failing to provide for the nation's brightest students. Proponents of special programming for gifted and talented students offered statistical evidence that the top-performing students in the United States were behind their peers in other countries, particularly in mathematics and science. In response, legislatures in 45 states passed laws either mandating gifted and talented programs or making provisions for state support of programs serving gifted and talented students. Not all people, however, accepted the premise that special programs should be provided for bright children. Critics claimed the programs were elitist. As a result, although only 2 percent of the funds spent on K-12 education were spent on gifted and talented programs, funding in many states was in danger of being cut.

Debate over the implementation of school-choice programs grew increasingly heated since the late 1980s. Many parents and politicians demanded public subsidies, such as school vouchers, to provide financial assistance to parents choosing private education. Proponents argued that such programs would afford parents greater freedom to provide their children with the highest-caliber education. Opponents, however, countered that vouchers and similar programs would not be able to cover the total costs of private education, and thus would afford greater leverage to the more economically advantaged while simultaneously gutting the public school system that the disadvantaged would have to rely on. There were three types of school-choice programs in the late 1990s: intradistrict, interdistrict, and magnet. Magnet schools, sometimes in conjunction with one of the other types, offer specialized programs aimed at drawing students with particular interests, abilities, or characteristics.

Current Conditions

By the early 2000s, weak economic conditions had resulted in business closures, massive workforce reductions, and decreasing tax bases throughout the United States, leading to state budget shortfalls. During the prosperous years of the 1990s, a number of states began funding schools through income taxes instead of property taxes. Ultimately, this trend hurt many of the nation's school districts. According to the January 19, 2003 Chicago Tribune , "The lingering national economic downturn, which last year resulted in trims to administrative expenses and loss of extracurricular activities, now is forcing districts to make severe cuts that directly affect the classroom." The newspaper cited figures from the National Conference of States Legislatures showing U.S. school districts were short $49 billion at the start of the 2002-03 academic year. By January, the deficit had increased by another $18 billion.

Amidst these conditions, some school districts sought ways to reduce costs and maintain operations. For example, by early 2003 nearly 28 percent of the school districts in Oregon were considering reducing the number of school days on their academic calendars. Among these, schools in Portland were moving toward four-day school weeks. This also was the case in some areas of New York State, where Governor George Pataki proposed education budget cuts of 8.5 percent. The New York Times reported that this would result in potentially devastating cutbacks of $1.24 billion for the state's elementary and secondary schools. In some states, districts were limited by the fact that four-day school weeks were not legal, or could jeopardize already falling levels of state funding.

In addition to considering shorter academic years, schools implemented other cost-cutting measures. In Oklahoma, teachers and students cleaned their own classrooms after custodians were eliminated from the payroll. Janitorial budget cutbacks in Hawaii resulted in potential toilet paper shortfalls, effectively causing schools to choose between basic essentials and needed educational resources like textbooks. Nationwide, schools also were looking to decrease energy costs in both new and existing facilities. In March 2003, Buildings reported that, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy, school energy expenditures exceed $6 billion annually. The publication indicated that schools could save $1.5 billion of this amount each year by improving operations, designing better buildings, and relying on renewable technologies that were more efficient.

Although resources were increasingly strained, the nation's elementary and secondary schools faced unprecedented challenges in providing quality educations. In July of 2002, the Associated Press reported that 9 percent of U.S. schools did not meet established state academic standards. In January of that year, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. According to the U.S. Department of Education, "The Act is the most sweeping reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since ESEA was enacted in 1965. It redefines the federal role in K-12 education and will help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. It is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work." The act allows children in schools that fail to meet academic standards established by their state to move to another public school without incurring excessive transportation costs.

Workforce

During the 2001-02 school year, a total of three million teachers worked at U.S. elementary and secondary schools. This figure was the same in 2000-01, but higher than 1999-2000 when 2.9 million teachers were employed. The growth in public school teachers through the 1990s mirrored the escalating enrollment figures, maintaining a ratio of about 17 students per every teacher. By 2001-02, the national ratio stood at 15.9.

Almost all teachers held at least a bachelor's degree by the early 2000s, while roughly 45 percent held a master's degree. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2001 education, training, and library workers at elementary and secondary schools earned an average annual salary of $36,899.

Most teachers work a 10-month schedule, with two months off during the summer. However, in addition to classroom duties, teachers' responsibilities include devising lesson plans, grading assignments and tests, and meeting with faculty, administrators, parents, and students. The combination of these tasks generally translates into significantly more than 40 hours of work per week.

Examples of nonteaching staff include principals and assistant principals, guidance counselors, librarians, teacher aides, and noninstructional staff. In private schools, the pupil/teacher ratio is 15:1.

America and the World

The U.S. elementary and secondary school system has long met with sharp criticism from those who feel its success in transmitting basic knowledge to its students was falling behind other nations. Scholastic tests repeatedly reveal that U.S. students tend to be toward the bottom of the list of industrialized countries in mathematics and science, while history and geography scores remain, for many educators, embarrassingly low. Although an ever-increasing number of Americans are completing high school, literacy levels remain below many developed nations, including Sweden, Germany, and Japan.

Only France and Germany spend a higher percentage of annual gross domestic product on education, whereas Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States spend the most per pupil. Schools in the United States, however, are structured differently from many schools overseas and offer wider educational opportunities to a more diverse student population. In the United States, elementary schools are structured to prepare students for secondary school, and secondary schools are structured to prepare students for higher education. In many other places, the progression of educational opportunity is less unified. Primary schools provide a basic education for the masses, and separate preparatory schools train children of the higher social classes for a secondary or higher education. Once committed to either a primary school or a preparatory school, very few students can move to the other system.

Despite these differences, critics of the American system claim that even European and Japanese students in non-college bound courses of study receive better academic training and higher skills via apprenticeships and school-to-work transition programs than do their American counterparts. In Germany, beginning with the fifth grade, children are enrolled in vocational, technical, or college-prep schools. In the tenth grade, students in vocational and technical schools begin paid apprenticeship programs in which they work for approximately three years while completing their academic and skill-building schooling. Students in college-prep schools, called Gymnasien, prepare for stringent university entrance exams.

Further Reading

Cleaver, Joanne. "The Hard Lesson. Teachers' Idealism Is Often Replaced by the Realities of Burnout; Is Mentoring the Answer?" Chicago Tribune, 27 April 2003.

Cohen, Warren. "Zero-Tolerance Brawl." U.S. News & World Report, 22 November 1999.

"For-Profit Schools." Business Week, 7 February 2000.

Good, H.G. A History of Western Education. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1960.

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What are the prospects of the proliferation of private schools.

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