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Full Chapter Outline:
The Public Schools
---Elementary School
---High School
---Quality Concerns
---Enrolling Your Child
---Special Education

Youth Sports Issues

Private and Religious Schools

Home Schooling

Prepared for Preparatory School?

Extra Educational Opportunities

Teen Self Esteem

English as a Second Language

Colleges and Universities
---Colleges are Bureaucratic
---Courses of Study
---The College Credit System
---Liberal Arts Colleges
---State University Systems
---Distance Learning
---Fraternities and Sororities
---Social Life and Sports
---College Towns

Graduate and Professional Schools

Applying to College
---Grades
---Aptitude Tests
---English Language Competence
---College Application Forms
---Recommendations
---Financial Aid
---Foreign Students
---Transferring
---Graduate School Admission

Succeeding in College

Adult and Continuing Education

Vocational and Correspondence Schools

The United States does not have a single unified education system. Federal and state laws regulate the operation of educational institutions to an extent, but few laws govern the actual subject areas covered or educational goals at any given academic level.

Public education for children in America is extremely fragmented, and is usually under the control of local communities. Private education, including schools affiliated with religious organizations, has an even lower level of government oversight.

The American university system is not really a system at all, it is so diverse, encompassing private and public institutions, some operating for profit. Private corporations, rather than the government, administer a system of aptitude examinations for college entry, even to public universities. Specialized trade and technical schools fill an important need. For people whose main goal is the love of learning rather than the attainment of educational degrees, adult education centers exist in many communities.

The sections that follow in this “Life in the USA” chapter on education give a subject-by-subject overview of education in America at every important level.

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