THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF AMERICA AND SPAIN

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

OF

AMERICA AND SPAIN

1

Alba Villaronga i Cases

Professor: Michael Malley

Course: Purpose of Education in Democracy (TCE216)

INDEX

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1. Introduction……………………………………………………………… Page

3

2. The Spanish and the US Education

context………………………………

Page

3

3. Types of educational centers based in

financing…………………………

Page

5

4. Education systems……………………………………………………….. Page

7

3.1 Structure……………………………………………………………… Page

7

3.2 Comparison of structured plans of

education………………………...

Page

8

5. Access to the university………………………………………………….. Page

10

6. Organization and autonomy of the education

centers…………………….

Page

10

7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….. Page

11

8. Bibliography……………………………………………………………... Page

123

1. Introduction

In this project I’m going to look in depth at the

educational system of the European culture of the Spain, and

I’ll compare it with the US system.

This project is divided in 5 main points. In the first point

I’m going to talk about the social and cultural context of

both countries in order to provide a better understanding of

both systems. In the second point I will introduce the

different type of educational institutions depending of its

financing. In the third point I’m going to explain the

different types of education system on each structure and

afterwards I’ll compare them. In the fourth point I’ll talk

a little bit of each way to attend to the university.

Finally, in the fifth point I’m going to talk about the

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autonomy of the educations centers. I’ll conclude the

project summarizing the main points.

To carry out this research it has been used some data from

the 2006 PISA report of both countries. It provided a good

comparison of both systems. The words PISA are from Program

for International Student Assessment and evaluate systems worldwide

by testing the skills and knowledge.

2. The Spanish and the US education context

The education system of each country it also depends of the

social and economic situation of the country, creating a

direct impact into the society. The first thing to be noted

is that there are significant cultural differences between

the two countries that affect the educational situation.

United States has a big rate of immigration and offers a

huge cultural and ethnographic variety between and inside

its different states. This big economic and cultural

heterogeneity in USA is one of the causes that determine the

huge variety in education results. In fact, the private

schools obtain better results than public schools, and this

reproduce and cause social inequality because the classes

with more economic power have access to better education

because they can pay it. In 2010 the Gini1 index of US was1 Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income or

consumption expenditure among individuals or households within an

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41.1 and the Gini per capita in 2013 was $53,670. President

Obama, in 2012, warned of the serious consequences of

inequality.

On the other hand, Spain, despite of have a high rate of

immigrants and a cultural heterogeneity the public schools

have better results than private ones. The Gini index is

less than US with a 35.8 and the Gini per capita in 2013 was

$29,180. This indicates that Spain is a more equality

society than US and this is reflected also in the education

where a student that goes to a public school has the same

level of knowledge than one in the private.

For reaffirm the idea of the correlation between the

academic results and the socio-economic environment I

present two graphics that show this relation:

economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A Lorenz curve

plots the cumulative percentages of total income received against the

cumulative number of recipients, starting with the poorest individual or

household. The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and

a hypothetical line of absolute equality, expressed as a percentage of

the maximum area under the line. Thus a Gini index of 0 represents

perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality.

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Relation between PISA (index of economic, social and cultural status)

and the results in the Tests.

Source: PISA 2006

On the two graphs we can observe the score of the tests in

the vertical bar, and the index of cultural, economic and

social status in the horizontal bar, all extracted from the

PISA report in 2006.

We can see that in USA there is a better socio-economic

status that is related a better studies results. On the

other hand in Spain the fact of being part of a high or low

socio-economic status don’t have influence on the results.

We can notice that the Spanish students possess equality

knowledge independent of its status. Therefore we can affirm

that the Spanish model of education is more homogeneity and

equality than the US.

As a curiosity that shows this inequality in USA, the

documental called Trading School, which relates the experience

of students from two different areas of Chicago that

switched classrooms. Located in a low-income community in

Chicago, the public Harper High School graduates just 40 % of

its students, meanwhile, in suburban Naperville, the private

Neuqua Valley High School graduates 99% of its students. When the

Harper students arrived at Neuqua Valley they were surprised to

see what the suburban school offered; an Olympic-size

swimming pool, a gym and fitness center, an award-winning

music department, and a rigorous course curriculum. At

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Neuqua Valley 78 % of students meet Illinois’ reading

standards, 76 % meet the science standards and 77 % meet the

math standards. At Harper, 16 % meet the reading standards,

1.5 % meets the science standards and just .5 % meet the

math standards. In this case we can also see more clearly

how this inequality it is alive in USA.

3. Types of educational centers based in financing

In both countries there exist three types of educational

institutions, the public, the private and those that are

half public and half private. The first ones are financed by

the State and in these cases the education it’s free, the

fees to pay are minimum and depends of the extra-activities

that the students do.  The second ones receive private

funding based on the alumni donations and others private

institutions like enterprises. The private institutions are

those that receive money for both sides, from the State and

private funding.

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TYPES OF CENTERS SPAIN USA

PRIVATE UNIVERSITY 8,875€($11,063) $40,476

PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 1,600€($1,994) $27,967

PRIVATE SCHOOL 3,400€($4,238) $9,272

PUBLIC SCHOOL -- * -- *

* The public schools are totally free, but there are

additional costs. This costs depends of the services that

the student do, for example the service of the lunchtime,

extra-activities (music, sport…), or the payment of the

books and material.

In this table we can appreciate the big difference of prices

that there are between private and public institutions, and

between countries. American students pay fourteen times more

than Spanish students do for attend to a public university.

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4. Education systems

In this section I’m going to look in depth the two different

education systems.

4.1 Structure

In general, we

can observe the

different ways

of structuring

the education

system in the

two countries.

The black line

separates the

secondary

education

(compulsory and

post-

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compulsory) from the university or vocational college and

the red line separates the compulsory education from the

post-compulsory.

On the other hand, the blue boxes indicate the kinder garden

education, while light yellow boxes refer to primary

education, the orange boxes refers to the compulsory

secondary school and the yellow indicates post-compulsory

secondary education.  Pink boxes indicate the university or

vocational education. Finally, the three grey columns

indicate the age (darker grey) and the degree (lightest

grey).

Main common points in these two systems:

·   Prekindergarten and Kindergarten (in Spain called

Guarderia), the place where parents send their children to

learn the alphabet, colors and other elementary basics, in

both systems starts and end in the same age.

·   In Spain, primary school starts at age of 6 and

finished at age of 12, same in US if we follow the plan

structured in “6-3-3” or “6-6”.

·   Both compulsory education ends at age of 16.

·   18 is the age to attend college.

Despite finding some common points between systems there are

also main differences. Above all, we can see that the US

system is more complex than the Spanish. It has four

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different structured plans while Spain has only one: “6-4-

2”. US schools are usually structured in a “6-3-3” plan, but

also “8-4”, “6-6”, and “4-4-4”.

4.2 Comparison of structured plans of education

As I already said, the common structured plan in US is the

6-3-3 (6 years of primary school, 3 years of middle school

and 3 of High school) and in this section I will compare it

with the 6-4-2 plan of Spain (6 years of primary school, 4

of middle school and 2 of high school).

The primary school in both is of 6 years and the kids start

at age of 5-6. Both systems use the teaching focusing on the

“3 R’s”: Reading, writing and arithmetic.  One of the

significant differences in the program may be the daily

class schedule, where while in Spain each day they have

different courses but it is the same on a weekly schedule,

in US, the kids have the same courses each day with rotating

electives.

The Junior High school usually runs from seventh grade to

ninth grade.  It has an individual curriculum that begins

with choice of different options for required courses by

ability level, and varying options for non-specific course

requirements. In Spain this individual curriculum doesn’t

have much optional courses, the first three years have just

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compulsory classes and the last one some optional (but this

sometimes depends of the school). The grades are based also

in ability level, like in US. In Spain, all the lessons are

taken in one classroom, so the students don’t need to change

the class, while in US students are given more independence,

moving to different classrooms for different lessons.

We can notice that the courses taken in both US and Spanish

junior high school are almost the same, and probably that is

because this studies are basic studies sustained by human

rights, where the students have to left the middle school

having a knowledge of history, mathematics, second language,

science, the courses of the own language (grammar, reading…)

and physical education.

The Senior High school runs from ninth or tenth through

twelfth grades. Students take a broad variety of classes

without special emphasis in any particular course or field.

They should take courses of science, mathematics, social

science, foreign language and health curriculum and some

form of art education are often also required.

In Spain, the high school is called batxillerat and its

curriculum is completely different. The batxillerat has

different modalities that the student has to choose before

start:

1. Scientific

2. Technologic

3. Social Sciences and Humanities

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4. Arts: Plastic arts, images and design, scenic arts,

music and dance.

Every modality focused on one field that will prepare the

student for a better entrance to the university degree he

wants to do. Inside of each modality it has some optative

courses but always of the same field. Can happen that when

the student finish the E.S.O don’t know what to choose,

because he don’t know what to study in the university, so

for not close future doors has the possibility to mix

modalities like for example: scientific-technologic.   

There is another chance for enter to the university for the

students that finish the E.S.O and don’t want to do the

Batxillerat. It exists vocational courses called cicles formatius

that provide practical training for work skills like

electrical work, hairdressing, computer programmer, etc.

This is more for people that wants to enter early to the

work market but also they have a chance to enter to the

university after these courses.

5. Access to the university

In Spain, students have to take PAU test (Prova d’Accés a la

Universitat, literally translated: Test to Access into the

University). This is an exam that students have to take

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after they finish their high school studies and it’s

necessary to go into University, even the cicles formatius

students have to do it. This test is about taken six 90

minutes written exams over three days in June.

In the other hand, in US, the students have to take the SAT

Reasoning Test. This test is a standardized test that is

required for college admission by many colleges and

universities in the United States but not in all. As an

alternative to this test, some colleges allow students to

take the ACT (American College Testing), another

standardized test, and some schools have an “SAT optional”

policy, meaning that students may submit scores, but they

are not required.

Both tests, PAU and SAT are not used for obtain the Diploma

of High School but to get the University admission The main

difference is that in Spain is evaluated the student

knowledge while in US the student’s abilities are measured.

6. Organization and autonomy of the education centers

I wanted to talk about the autonomy of the educations

centers because I think that the capacity of establishing

educational policies and also the own curriculum in a

determined school provided important information of how the

education system works in both systems.

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In Spain there is a general tendency to provide school

facilities for greater autonomy. As we can see from the

following graphs, in general US schools are endowed with

great autonomy in selecting teachers and establish its

educational policies and performance, although as shown in

the graphs above does not necessarily lead to better

results.

As we can see in the above tables, in the US there is

greater competition from the school in establishing the

content or hiring staff. In Spain is where schools have

fewer skills.

The current trend of providing centers greater autonomy

should not necessarily lead to better results. In fact, US

is where the schools have greater autonomy to select

educational content, so they have a very open curriculum,

and in theory can be adapted to the different

characteristics of the center environment, but the reality

is that openness curriculum which now tends in our country,

they do not get the expected result because despite the many

resources spent on education obtained similar results to

those of Spain.

6. Conclusions

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There exists a higher correlation between the academic

results and the socio-economic environment in US, where

the private schools get better results than the public

ones, creating education inequalities.  In the other

hand, Spain provide more equality for its pupils as a

result of this we can see that the public school afford

the same level of knowledge than the private school.

We can appreciate a huge difference of prices between

private and public institutions in the different

cultures. American students pay fourteen times more

than the Spanish students only to attend the public

universities and almost four times more to attend the

private universities.

The education system of US is more complex than the

Spanish system but they still have similarities; the

compulsory education is until 16 years old, 18 years is

the general age to entrance into the university. In the

primary school both systems use the teaching focusing

on the “3 R’s” and in the junior high school it can be

notice that the lessons taken in both are almost the

same, probably because in this level provides general

and basic knowledge. Finally, in senior high school, in

Spain they provide different modalities each one

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specialized in one field, while in US the curriculum is

mixed without any specialization.

To attend into the university is required to do a test

in both countries. These are PAU in Spain and SAT in

US. The main difference is that Spain is evaluating the

student knowledge while in US the student’s abilities

are measured.

Finally, the current trend of providing centers with

more autonomy should not necessarily lead to better

results. Furthermore, Spain has general tendency to

provide school facilities for more autonomy and US

schools have better competition for establishing the

content of the curriculum or hiring staff.

7. Bibliography

"Average Private School Tuition Cost (2014-2015)." Average

Private School Tuition Cost (2014-2015). N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

"Failing Grade." Oprah.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

"Glossary of U.S. Educational Terminology (Assefa)." Glossary

of U.S. Educational Terminology (Assefa). N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec.

2014.

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"Searching..." Types of Educational Institutions USA. N.p., n.d. Web.

02 Dec. 2014.

"The American School System." The American School System. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, n.d. Web. 02 Dec.

2014.

"US-2 Class Terminology Notes." US-2 Class Terminology Notes.

N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

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