Jame: Hello everyone and welcome to America under the microscope.
Lu: the advanced episode. Hello James
Jame: Hello Lulu.
Lu: so last time we were talking about K12 education in the United States
J: Yes, we were.
l: Let's continue with that topic. You've mentioned public school. You've mentioned that you have 13 years of compulsory education.
J: It seems like a long time, doesn't it?
L: Yeah, it does. So tell me about the types of schools you have apart from the standard schools.
J: so there are standard public schools which you know, most people think when you go to public schools, you go to school, you have classes all things normal.But that's not the only option we have in America, we have a few others. One of the things that you see a lot of is what we call Charter Schools.
L: Charter schools? Are they also public?
J: Some of them are yes and some of them can be private. And the public ones what they are is a school that is usually started up by an independent and sometimes by private organization using public funds and these private organizations usually, they can set up a school that maybe has smaller class size and different teaching philosophies that some students respond well to. But there are not without controversy because while some are well run and have great management, some are overly religious and they might use state money for religious education which is illegal in the United States.
L: oh so it's illegal to use states money for a religious education.
J: Yes because United States has a separation between a church and a state.
L: So basically this can include religious schools
J: It can. It's not supposed to use the state money.
L: But it's ok if they use private funds.
J: Private money, they can go crazy.
L: Ok. What else? So standard public school, Charter Schools and …
J: We also have what we consider alternative schools, and these are basically alternative to everything else. These can be certain specialized schools like for kids are highly talented in art, music and they go to specific music schools.
L: Ok, so it's a specialized school.
J: But they also can include schools for children with behavioral issues or other problems that maybe won't allow them to attend regular schools.
L: Like you said, that really includes all sorts of schools that cannot be grouped into the previous two groups.
J: Yeah, that's right.
L: Alright. So you know that in China, generally we have standardized textbooks and curriculum that schools need to follow. What about in the states? The materials that schools are covering, do you have a standardized version?
J: Well, let me tell you a story.
L: Ok.
J: Growing up as a kid, my dad changed jobs a few times and I moved from place to place going from school district to school district. And it was pretty interesting because I went from one school in Texas to another school in Idaho which school in Idaho was teaching us stuff that I had already learned in the previous year in Texas.
And when we moved again to Oregon, and then the school in Oregon was teaching things more advanced than what I had learned in Idaho. And then I moved to another school in Oregon which taught things that I had already learned in the previous school in Oregon. And this repeated several times.
L: that sounds very difficult for a kid to move from one school district to another school district if there's no standardized version.
J: That's right because teaching material and what's taught is really controlled by the local government and the state government more than the federal government.

L: So it's not decided at the federal level then.
J: Not very much. So the local leader and the local politicians, they have a lot to say about what is taught and what isn't taught.
L: So is this could be very different from state to state, city to city.
J: It could be hugely different. There are some places that have really amazing education in America and at other places, a lot people would have seen it as really backwards.
L: That wouldn't be fair for students there, would it?
J: No, I wouldn't say it would be fair at all.
L: But there are no agencies in the United States that would standardize or at least oversee this type of curriculum design to make sure that people are given equal chances or somewhat…
J: If there was, it would be the department of education. But the department of education doesn't have the power to do this. A lot of people who have power in the state level, they don't want this to change because they want the power to control what's taught in the schools, they want to keep it local because they feel that is better for the students than what the people in Washington can decide.
L: Very complex. And what about exams?
J: Well, there's a big push to do more standardized tests in America not as at the so much like the whole country level but each state is not… it seems that each state is trying to add these state assessments to see how well the students are doing in school.
L: So currently in K12 in United States, what kind of standardized tests do you have apart from SAT?
J: SAT is something completely separate for getting into universities. It's not even part of …
L: Oh it's not even part of K12.
J: No. So where I'm from in my state, they have three tests, one was in fifth grade, and again in eighth grade and finally in eleventh grade if I remember correctly. And these tests, they were testing our basic academic ability in maths, English, writing and reading. And nowadays, a lot of places are tying teachers' performances with these exam scores and giving bonuses or even punishment for high achievement and underachievement of classes.
L: That's the same in China. But as a student, what would happen to you if you don't do well in these major standardized exams?
J: Well, from my personal experience, I failed it in high school and I went to university and did just fine. So for a lot of students, seriously, it's almost no affect in some places and it's required to pass in order to graduate.
L: Oh, so it's really, completely different. I think this is one of the major major difference in the United States. It's that you have very different rules at different states.
J: Yes, yes, it's a mess. If you ask any American teacher, it's completely mess.
L: Yes, and you said that they're talking about increasing in exam-based education and also tying teachers'bonuses with this performance. But teachers are not happy?
J: Well, yeah, they're not happy about that but teachers are unhappy about several things. It's not just about the money but it's also the fact that they're kind of ties of their hands and what they feel like they should be teaching in the best way to help the students. Because they know that the exams may not really mean anything in the future and may not be what the students really need to learn.
L: Em, so they have to teach towards the exam which is what people don't really want to do.
J: Right, nobody really enjoys suffer very much.
L: Since all this education is free, where's the budget coming from?
J: Taxes.
L: Okay, does that mean if you have more tax payers in a certain state or in a certain district, then the school gets better funding?
J: Instead of the number of tax payers in an area, although that does help, it's about the property value and property taxes they can collect around the school district because most schools get their budget money from property tax.
L: From property tax?
J: Yeah, the higher value the homes, the more tax they get the more money they have.
L: And then obviously, then the education would be better and then more families would want to come to the school district so it's getting better and better but the opposite would be a vicious cycle, property tax drops…
J: Unfortunately, that's what happened. Yes so you get these really great schools with lots of money placed at places with high valve, people who have money can move there and their kids can go. But it also leaves schools that are in poor areas behind because the value of their properties is low and they don't get much tax money, which these schools probably actually are the ones that need the money more.
L: Yes, this system does have its problems. A lot of our listeners are actual teachers right now teaching in K12 education or Chinese equivalent version of K12 education. So what about the teachers in the United States in K12, are they happy, are they generally happy with their pay, with their work, with their current status?
J: Let's break this down, are they happy? Most people become teachers not because they want to make money, most people become teachers because they want to help children and helping children makes them happy. In terms of other aspects, I would say not so much. The teachers' pay is probably not what it should be. So on average American teachers, let's say high school teacher, probably makes 44,000 dollars a year.
L: 44,000 dollars.
J: which to people in China,that might seem a lot of money, but really it isn't.
L: What's the average income?
J: The average family income in the United States is about 50,000 dollars a year. So 44,000 is pretty good compared to that. But this is the fact that in a high school a teacher, you probably gonna have a bachelor's degree minimum although most prefer you to have a master's degree which is not a great salary for …
L: For people with high degrees …
J: And being a teacher is not a simple, it's you know you go to work at 9am and go home at 5 because you have all the paperwork, you have to do a lot of grading.
L: Lesson prep.
J: Lesson prep, exams and you have meetings and you probably have to do training of new government plans that they want you to do, so a lot more work than it seems. I have lots of family members who are teachers and they definitely think teachers should be paid on part with lawyers and doctors because these are the people who make lawyers and doctors.
L: They do put in a lot work, don't they? I'm sure a lot of you who are teaching in China can relate to this. So that's a lot about K12 education. Maybe in the future we can explore university education in the United States.
J: Oh, I hope so.
L: Thank you James, thank you for another interesting episode.
J: Thank you for having me.
L: We'll see you next time, bye.

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