2. K-12 Organization

School attendance is compulsory for students through age 16 in most states. Children generally begin elementary school with kindergarten （K） at age five and continue through secondary school （grade 12） to age 18. Typically, the elementary school years include kindergarten through grades five or six, and at some schools through grade eight. Secondary schools —known as high schools in the United States—generally include grades nine through 12.

Fifty years ago, elementary school students typically moved immediately to high school, or they attended junior high school for grades seven and eight or grades seven, eight, and nine. During the past 30 years, however, junior high schools have been largely replaced with middle schools configured for grades six through eight, or roughly for the same grades as junior high. Estimates are that 20 million young people, ages 10 to 15, attend middle schools today.

As Minnesota principal Mark Ziebarth described the difference between the two approaches, “A junior high school program is designed to mirror a traditional high schoolprogram for students at a younger age. It has a similar schedule to the high school and classes are arranged by departments. Middle schools are designed to provide a forum to meet the special needs of adolescents.”

Team teaching and flexible block scheduling¹, rather than set 45 or 50-minute classes, are characteristic of middle schools. These schools also place emphasis on small groups, on an interdisciplinary approach to subject matter, and on special projects that can engage 10 to 15-year-olds, who, says the National Middle School Association, “are undergoing the most rapid intellectual and developmental changes of their lives.”

The large contemporary high school, offering a broad menu of academic and elective courses for students ages 14 to 18, became a fixture in American education by the mid-20th century. High school students also can choose from a host of clubs, activities, athletics, work-study arrangements, and other extracurricular activities. Based on grades and tests, students can take advanced academic courses or more general or vocational classwork.

Through most of the 20th century, high schools were consolidated into larger units to offer wider class choices to more and more students. The rural country school almost disappeared, replaced by countywide high schools. In cities, it was not uncommon for large school campuses to hold as many as 5 000 students with both college-oriented and vocational courses that could appeal to just about everyone.

More recently, concerns over the caliber of education in such large schools has led to a call for the establishment of smaller schools with lower student-teacher ratios.

The contemporary American high school has long loomed large in the public culture. The popular musical Grease , the television series Happy Days , and movies like Blackboard Jungle depicted the light and dark sides of schools in the 1950s. Recent popular entertainments with high school settings range from films like Mean Girls, Juno, Election , and High School Musical to such hit TV shows as Beverly Hills 90210 and Saved by the Bell .