Nearly nine in ten American pupils attend a public school
Taxpayer-funded schooling is close to universal worldwide, yet the words used for it shift from country to country. Americans say public school, Canadians fund Catholic separate schools from the same public purse, and in South Africa the official term goes unused in everyday speech. Behind the labels lie very different systems.
A state school is a primary or secondary school paid for wholly or partly through taxes and run by government, typically serving children from about 4 to 18. In the United States, 88 percent of pupils attend public schools, against 9 percent at church-run parochial schools, 2 percent educated at home and 1 percent at independent private schools. The country's first free public school was the Syms-Eaton Academy, founded in 1634 in Hampton, Virginia; Dedham, Massachusetts, opened the first one funded by taxes.
Control in the United States sits with the states, because the Tenth Amendment reserves powers the Constitution does not grant to Washington, and education is not among them. Federal influence comes through money: any school taking federal funds, including student aid such as Pell Grants, falls under federal rules. Day-to-day decisions rest with mostly elected local school boards, funded largely by property taxes. Public universities charge tuition, though usually far less than private ones for in-state students.
Canada leaves schooling to its provinces. Every province offers kindergarten, and publicly funded education runs from grade one to grade twelve. Ontario scrapped its Grade 13 year in 2003, and there, as in New Brunswick, pupils must stay in school until 18. Ontario's Catholic separate schools are funded and regulated by the Crown, making them no less public than secular ones despite the name.
Elsewhere the variations multiply. South Africa's Schools Act of 1996 split schools into public and independent, with low-fee independent schools receiving sliding-scale subsidies. Mexico offers nine years of free compulsory schooling; Panama requires 11 and obliges parents to support children who are still studying until age 25. Argentina's free education, universities included, is tied to President Domingo Sarmiento's view that the sovereign people must be educated. In rural Bangladesh government high schools teach in Bengali and are often the only option.
Source: State school
