Talk:Secondary education in the United States

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Redirects

There have been a flurry of messy discussions around Talk:High school, Talk:Secondary school, Talk:Secondary education, and the creation of High school (North America) as opposed to High school (United States). This is what I recommend:

• Secondary school → Secondary education: There is no substantive difference in scope between the articles except for the discussion of building architecture, which should be covered in the latter anyway
• High school → Secondary_education#By_country: The latter defines the "high school" as a type of secondary school and disambiguates to the related "secondary education in X country" to read about the high school of choice. (This doesn't mean every usage of high school needs to be disambiguated, as general references to secondary education are fine, but if the secondary education is in reference to a specific country's system, the disambiguation makes more sense.)
• High school (United States) → Secondary education in the United States, as is already the case
• Delete (or rename and merge, if needed) High school (North America), which should have been put at High school (United States) based on its scope and nonetheless duplicates what is already adequately scoped within the existing article on secondary schooling in the U.S.

Ping me if I can be helpful, but these are my recommended routes out of the mess czar 18:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort. This has all been done before and come to a slightly different but still not perfect solution. Just a few reasons why your proposals were not adopted before.

• Secondary School/Education- the articles can not be developed if they are combined. It fails Good article criteria 3a/ 3b. separating allows editors to focus. There is much duplicated material that eventually will be edited out as they aim for GA.
• High school has so many meanings. If appears to have a clear meaning in Canada and the US- but elsewhere it is all over the place. To relate a short anecdote from a High School in Maidstone, Kent UK. A sixty year old new appointee asked me why he didn't have any classes that in former times would have been at a Grammar school- when I explained that in Kent a High School, was not a 11-18 comprehensive school but the lowest rung of a selective ladder- ie a Secondary Modern- his face dropped and he said- I have been seriously duped. All education articles need to refer to the ISCED classsifications
• High school (United States) → Secondary education in the United States, as is already the case.  Done Agree
• High school (North America)- I have many thoughts here- but most were killed by contrary examples. Firstly this article is not for North American readers, it has to be understood by someone who has not been to one. The title is clumsy- but High School (United States) upsets Canada and it is/was occupied. High School (America) No esta la mismo in México y Brasil! High school alone needs to be disambed- just saying, (for other uses... ) causes nationalistic friction- and Edinburgh High School founded in 1128 has a pre-existing claim.

It is interesting to see the redirect list. Some are excessive links in biographys "Ẅhen I had finished High School...etc" @Certes: has already put in a lot of good work trying to sort out the mess- but what is needed is some assistance- not an attempt to go back to where we were in June and before. Many of the reasons were spelled out in detail on the old Talk:High school page- starting 20 August 2017 but the debate appeared to start in January 2006, ClemRutter (talk) 20:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there anything we should be changing now, with consensus, or shall I let this sleeping dog lie until it we're sure that it's barking up the right tree? Certes (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I am watching with interest, what other proposals are made and the reasoning, but I suspect there will be none, give it another week and we can evaluate the situation, and if necessary tweak the strategy. ClemRutter (talk) 23:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Weeks later now and I still don't see the case for separating High school (North America). My proposal above covers all bases, and content can be merged to the existing sections as needed. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 19:25, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Czar: All of us on this thread are trying to sort out the mess. I am hampered by not having been educated in the system, and you are hampered by not having been educated outside the system, and this may explain why we are focusing from different angles. Before I started the article trying to describe what a North American high school was I looked at all the existing articles and tried to look for an easy fix. To a European, secondary education runs from 11-18, and the student finishes with an externally validated exam- the Bac, the abitur, the A level. It encompasses ISCED 2 and 3- the North American system appears very strange in that there is no externally validated final exam. What we are looking for is an article like Gymnasium (Germany).

I too looked at Secondary education in the United States- but I wouldn't know where to start. Looking at sentence one of the lead. In most jurisdictions, secondary education in the United States refers to the last four years of statutory formal education (grade nine through grade twelve) either at high school or split between a final year of 'junior high school' and three in high school This is not supported by reference 1, and immediately contradicted by reference 2 (p.85) which gives a description of the US system, and a clear description of the UK system (with one major mistake on the diagram but the text is correct for 2005). The text of the article seems to continue to confuse elementary education with primary- never having adjusted to the ISCED levels. The transfer from elementary school to junior high then high school is implied in some sentences but not in others. Then there is a section on Middle Schools which of course is unreferenced. The {{Refimprove}} was placed in 2008- is says it all.

I cannot see a way to rescue this article in the present form- so keep the referenced history section, go through using reference 2 p 86, doing a section on the structure of US education as a portal to three many articles Elementary School (North America) ISCED 1, Middle School (North America) ISCED 2 and High School (North America) ISCED 3. - Do a section on statistics - Do a section on current issues. If Canada doesn't object- sure (North America) could be changed to (United States), that is cosmetic. I think that gives a framework that will work, and it will lead the way to article expansion. Thanks for maintaining your interest. ClemRutter (talk) 01:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

What sources are you using to substantiate the independent idea of a "North American high school"? If none, the article should be deleted. If the topic is "High school (United States)", that topic was already redirected to the current "secondary ed in the U.S." article, from which the topic can expand summary style. If you're unsatisfied with how the U.S. secondary ed article covers the topic of high school, which seems to be the case, I can help find sources (I have a background in the history of education) but that's a different discussion than whether the "North American high school" exists as a separate concept from the "American (U.S.) high school". czar 06:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

@Czar: I am suffering from a bad case of Deja vu here! Above I have given a detailed critique- you do need to read the articles and particularly Secondary education in the United States- read carefully reference 2 p86 ("Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G8 Countries: 2004" (PDF). National Center for Education Statistics.).That reference gives the justification for the approach I am following. My background is in writing syllabi, governing schools, sitting on LEA Education Committees, as well as working in them, and exchanging with German and French schools. I question the historic decision to erase and redirect the HS(US) article in September 2009- but that was eight years ago and US High schools and WP have moved on. From your experience, how long do we normally wait before re-examining such a decision? ClemRutter (talk) 10:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

"High school (United States)" was created as a redirect in 2009 so there never was a discussion... But again, WP follows summary style and U.S. middle, junior high, and high schools should be adequately explained in the secondary ed article before being split out as separate concepts.

There is no "reference #2" on p. 86, unless you're referring to the "United States" entry of World Education Encyclopedia: A Survey of Educational Systems Worldwide? What's your page citation? (Also note that their subheading is "Secondary education" not "High school".)

But I'd like to at least first acknowledge that there is no such thing as the "North American high school". Everything written there so far is specific to the United States, not North America. Again, we can discuss how to fix the secondary ed (in the U.S.) article, but first need to resolve the outgrowth of the "NA high school". (By the way, to answer your question on where to start, the lede of the secondary ed in the U.S. article is indeed wrong—secondary includes middle/junior high schools, not just last four years. I have no idea why the World Educ Encycl U.S. article skips early secondary altogether—major oversight.) czar 16:02, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Possible deletion of inaccurate content

I'm editing this piece and some of the information seems if not irrelevant, at least more opinion-based than it should be for a Wiki article. Specifically I'm referring to the last section, "Media." I understand having a list of examples of American high school for reference, but the passages before and after the list seem both like opinions and irrelevant to the focus of the article. I'd like to delete these descriptions around the list and add information about the movies and how they portray high schools versus the reality. Also a comparison could be made about a typical 80s high school and present day.

Also, some of the information in the history section was inaccurate or extraneous so I deleted some of that and tried to back it up with more veritable information. Does this section seem complete now? I'm still wondering whether more information could be added about the development of high school, specifically, over time instead of keeping this section's focus on public school and how they came to be. Laporekb (talk) 15:22, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

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Definition of "grade"

This article would benefit from a definition of what a "grade" is. Presumably it defines classes of pupils of similar ages, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that describes a grade in terms of the age of the pupils in each grade