Today’s education system in the United States has a number of distinctive features, formed under the influence of the specific conditions of the country’s development. The most significant feature can be considered the fact that there is no unified state educational system in the USA: any of the states has an opportunity to conduct an independent policy in this sphere.
The education system in the USA includes:
Preschools – here babies 3-5 years old are brought up and master elementary knowledge.
Elementary school, Grades 1-8, where children aged 6 to 13 learn.
Middle school, Grades 9-12 – adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17.
Higher education lasts from 2 to 4 years.
The American educational system is more democratic than the European one, and does not have a rigid hierarchical structure.
Pre-school educational institutions in the United States include kindergartens with nursery groups for very young children, and special centers preparing little ones for future studies. These agencies are owned by the government or private individuals. The activity of private enterprises is supervised by the authorities, stimulating the introduction of advanced methods in educational practice and rendering financial assistance. The undoubted advantage of such an organization of the preschool education system is mobility in terms of various pedagogical innovations.
This has a beneficial effect on increasing the overall level of the next stage of school education, since every child has the opportunity to join the educational process from an early age and to show and develop his or her abilities.
When children reach the age of five, they move on to the older groups of kindergarten, which can be conventionally considered the zero grade of elementary school. At this stage there is a smooth transition from the playful form of conducting classes to the traditional one.
In the United States there are so-called pre-school laboratories which are opened at institutions of higher education and serve as a research base for the training of future teachers. Such experimental departments are wonderfully equipped and create optimal conditions for the education and development of children. They are designed for children ages 3 to 6.