Has the US effectively (and unknowingly) re-created its school system?

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think the answer is "yes". School in the US today is not what is was.

If, dear reader, you remember the 50s or 60s, or if you have seen any Reader's Digest or Marvel comics from the period, you will have seen those ads for getting your High School Diploma via correspondence courses. Clearly two things were happening. A significant number of adults did not have a HS Diploma, presumably because they had not attended or completed High School, and a HS Diploma meant something.

High School education became the norm and almost everyone completed secondary education, compared to the generation before which had had elementary education as its minimum. An increasing number of states made education to age 18 or to the end of Grade 12 the mandatory minimum.

In the 80s or 90s, Associate degrees exploded onto the scene. It was no longer enough to have a HS Diploma, the new minimum was a degree and the minimum degree was an Associates. At the same time, the primary or sole provides of Associates degrees was the community college.

Until this time, college entry was largely determined by High School Diploma and SAT scores.

Meanwhile, APs were growing in popularity and moved from a few elite, often selective and often private schools to increasing numbers of regular public high schools. High School Diplomas were defined by accrediting agencies, and then by states, as "seat time" rather than any minimum academic standard.

So what has happened is graduating from school (G1 - 12) now means spending 12 years there with some fairly basic, and constantly litigated, academic requirements, the new HS Diploma is the associates degree, and academic prowess is measured by external agencies using external instruments such as AP, IB and Cambridge.

So to the question above, yes. Is it a good thing? I think so. But I also think we need better to define school (G1 - 12) and what we as a society expect.

**Please leave your comments or questions below.**

Further Reading

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