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K-12 Education System and Student Assessment
What is the K-12 educational system, and how are students assessed along the way? Relocate takes a look at how the United States education system varies from other countries across the globe.
The K-12 system means ‘from kindergarten up to 12th grade’. This equates roughly to a school beginning age of around five through to Grade 12 at about the age of 18. The system is categorized into three stages: elementary school (Grades K–5), middle school (Grades 6–8), and high school (Grades 9–12).
The K-12 curriculum has the mission of providing students essential information and knowledge free of charge. With this very beneficial and necessary tool for lifetime success, one would think that the U.S. educational system would be booming and overflowing with encouraged, wise, and sage young women and men prepared for the next step in life, whether it is a future in military or trade college; however, quite the opposite is true.
In America, education is primarily the responsibility of the local and state government. Every state in the country has its own education department and laws concerning finance, the hiring of school personnel, learner attendance, and curriculum. Also, states determine the number of years of compulsory education – in some states, education is only mandatory till the age of 16.
Nevertheless, with the layering of tests issued by mandates from Congress, the United States Department of Education, and local and state governments, the education system is becoming confusing and unwieldy. Standardized testing in schools has become a contentious issue. Recent research from the Council of the Great City Schools suggests that learners would sit around 112 standardized tests between kindergarten and 12th grade.
In December 2015, the president signed the “Every Student Succeeds Act”, which promised to provide the same standard of education to every teenager in the United States “irrespective of where they live, the zip code, background, race, or income.”
The law replaced the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and, among other things, is an attempt to bring back some aspects of control with the recommendation for having fewer examinations of higher quality. States are supposed to test learners in reading and math in Grades 3 to 8, and then once during their high-school years.
Unlike other nations’ end-of-school examination systems, like the A-Level in the United Kingdom or the globally recognized International Baccalaureate Diploma, United States students leave school with a collection of assessments that demonstrate their readiness for either college or work.
Even though some schools issue a high-school diploma on satisfactory completion of Grade 12, this is not a standardized qualification, and the requirements are set by every state. At the end of high school, students are also provided with a Grade Point Average (GPA), which can aid in determining their next step either into work or college.
GPA is the average score taken from a learner’s high school career as a result of tests, homework assignments, quizzes, mid-term/final exams, essays, classroom participation, group work, projects, and attendance. Learners can also receive a class rank, placing his/her GPA among other members of his/her grade.
Common Core standardized Testing in the United States
Although every state is in charge of its own education initiatives and laws, the United States federal government has made trials to standardize the curriculum across United States schools by introducing the Common Core.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative stipulates that the Common Core is a set of “high-quality education standards in Math and English language arts/literacy” and outlines what a learner should understand and do at the end of each grade.
These standards were created to “make sure that all learners graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge required to excel in a career, college, and life.” Some 42 states, D.C, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity willingly adopted the Common Core, even though a handful of states have now withdrawn from the Common Core and adopted their own sets of standards.
Nevertheless, the introduction of the Common Core tests to measure learners’ performance against these academic standards, layered on top of current state-run academic tests, college entrance tests as well as Advanced Placement tests, has caused confusion and accusations of replication of assessment. Even President Obama was forced to accept that the pressure of over-assessment in learning organizations has become unbearable.
In his statement, President Obama said, “I hear from parents who, rightly, worry about too much testing, and from instructors who feel so much pressure to teach an exam that it takes the joy out of learning and teaching and, both for them and for the learners. I want to fix that.”
Once learners and teachers have had time to adjust to the new system, one clear benefit is that the standards are benchmarked internationally, which means that the United States standards can be compared with other nations’ standards across the globe. And the tests are also standardized so that results can be compared across states, while previously, it was difficult to compare standards nationally as all states had their own system of testing.
While states no longer have to incur the cost of developing their own testing methods, most of them believe that the new Common Core system will also increase teaching standards and better prepare students for life after high school.
Before states can even start to offer hope throughout their public-school system, educational leaders to start with qualified data regarding their community. They require to have the answers to questions like these:
- What percentage of the population speaks another primary language other than English in the home?
- What is the average size of the family?
- What is the population demographic by ethnic cluster?
- What is the average income of the family?
- What is the education level?
With these demographic changes, K12-education constantly has to make transitions within the schools to attain the needs of many. School leaders should pay special attention to the following aspects:
- Transitional Grades – 6th-grade and 9th-grade are especially challenging years. Even learners who showed no signs of risk in earlier years may struggle during these years and find themselves falling behind; therefore, setting them up for failure and later dropping-out.
- Offering Personalized Counselors– Counselors who work more, such as individualized case managers, build relationships with their learners, intervene when required, help the entire family, and teach the learner problem-solving techniques that will give learners a better chance of success.
- Offering smaller schools and focused curriculums– smaller class sizes where interpersonal connections between learners and adults are fostered, instructors are supportive, and courses are relevant, focused, and rigorous. These settings have been shown to have lower dropout rates.
- The likelihood ofoffering certain high school reform models – A high school that has a Talent Development Program and a Success Academy in 9th-grade which offers concentrated social and academic support; and a high school that provides Career Academies, stimulating career and technical training that prepares learners for a career post-graduation included to required state academics. These two models have been established to be secondary programs that reduce dropout rates.
- Providing programs that address the disparities in relation to race and ethnic group challenges– High schools that have established mentoring, tutoring, dropout prevention programs for at-risk groups and having a community, parent, and adult activity groups have also seen a significant reduction in the dropout rate.
- Offering access to high-quality preschooleducation for all teens, particularly those from lower socio-economic families. Several states and school districts still don’t provide free pre-K educational programs. Increasing educational access to include pre-kindergarten programs will give learners an additional advantage and prepare them for the coming years (NSBA, 2012).
With each passing year, America’s K-12 educational system’s need for improvement becomes more and more painfully acute. The K-12 educational system is a living, active, and crucial component of this country’s present and future. Like everything else, public education must continuously reinvent itself to serve the common goal. In an ever-changing globe, where the demographics change as fast as they do, the K-12 educational system requires us to be prepared to change with it, or inevitably, our learners, generations of them, will get left behind.