¶ … Israeli and U.S. Educational Systems
Comparison of the Educational Systems in the United States and Israel Today
Schools are unique in any society since they educate and mold the next generation who will then be in charge of how the world will shape up and how these schools will be run in the future. Educators in every country help shape the character and the morality of their students beyond the intellectual and physical instruction provided. An education today must prepare a person for the realities of life, including how to balance a checkbook, answer an employment ad, and how to comport oneself at a job interview. These fundamental skills are just part of a huge body of knowledge which includes everything about a given society and the world in which people live. This paper will provide an overview and comparison of the respective educational systems employed by the United States and Israel today, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion
Background and Overview. There can be no doubt that basic literacy and solid grounding in reading and writing skills are critical to academic performance and future success in higher education and continuing careers. The general effectiveness of the respective educational systems in the United States and Israel can therefore be considered in terms of the national literacy rates, with both nations achieving high levels of overall literacy. The overall literacy rate in the United States is 97% (United States 2003) compared with a slightly lower overall literacy rate of 95.4% in Israel today (Israel 2003). These percentages, though, do not reflect the fundamental differences involved in what is taught in these educational systems, nor do they suggest the underlying challenges that confront both educational systems today.
Educational System in the United States. Public schools in the U.S. are organized along traditional lines and operate under policies set by states and by district boards of education. These policies determine such matters as what subjects should be taught and what qualifications teachers need. The national system of formal education in the United States developed in the 19th century and differed from other educational systems in place in other Western societies in three fundamental ways. The first difference was that Americans were more inclined to regard education as a solution to various social problems. The second, because they had this confidence in the power of education, Americans provided more years of schooling for a larger percentage of the population than other countries. The third difference in the American system was that educational institutions were primarily governed by local authorities rather than by federal ones (Kozol 1991).
The American educational system today can be viewed as having remained substantially the same in form within while undergoing enormous pressures to change from without. From such experimental programs as the Dalton Plan, the Winnetka Plan, and the Gary Plan, and from the pioneering work of Francis W. Parker and notably John Dewey, which ushered in the "progressive education" of the 1920s and '30s, American schools, curricula, and teacher training have changed in favor of more flexible and cooperative methods (Devitas & Sola 1989). These new approaches have been pursued within a school seen as an overall learning community. The attempt to place the nature and experience of the child and the present life of the society at the center of school activity has been a primary focus of this approach. Most curriculum reforms in U.S. schools have attempted to accentuate academic basics, particularly mathematics, science, and language, as well as the "new basics," including computers. In addition, computers have become increasingly important in education not only as a field of study but also as reference and teaching aids.
As America continues to experience fundamental changes in its society as a result of shifts in population from urban to suburban environments, alternatives to traditional educational settings have been explored to help meet the challenges these changes create. Some alternatives being examined in the United...
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