Hi.

We're going to be talking about education today.

You asked us your top education questions in English, and we're going to have a chit chat about those questions, immerse you in English, and I hope you will end up on the other side of this conversation with a higher level of vocabulary, more confidence about speaking in English, and you'll enjoy it along the way.

And like always, I've created a free PDF worksheet, which is over Dan's face at the moment, with all of today's important vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences, everything that you're going to hear in this lesson, you will get in the free PDF worksheet.

So you can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today.

All right, Dan, are you ready to get started with the first question that our students have asked us?

Yes.

I'm ready to get educated.

All right, let's do it.

Today's education questions were asked by my student, Carmen, from Italy, and Mai in

Australia.

Are you ready for the first one?

I'm ready.

All right.

The first question is, what age does school start in the U.S.?

That's where we're from, the U.S., and what does the education system look like?

So let's start with the first question.

What age does school start in the U.S.?

Yeah.

So a lot of kids go to some kind of school around four years old.

So this would be preschool, and in a lot of cases, this is not provided by the state.

Yeah.

This is something that parents have to pay for out of pocket.

And I would say this is kind of like daycare, except maybe a little more education peppered in because they're really little kids.

And then official school is kindergarten, which starts around five or six years old.

And this is where real school begins.

We're sitting and trying to learn our letters and alphabet and reading, and here's numbers and all that kind of thing.

And then elementary school would be first through fifth grade, which is probably, what, seven to 11 or 12?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Something like that.

10, 11 years old.

Yep.

And then it moves on to middle school, which is everybody's favorite time of existence, 12 to 14-ish.

This is a great example of sarcasm.

Oh, yes.

This is sarcasm.

Yeah.

Middle school, not known for being the most fun time.

And it's funny because a lot of kids are moving at this time.

They could be going to a different school, different classes, and then you're going through this awkward time in your life, and here's some other new people for you.

It'll be fun.

So yeah, that's an interesting time.

Usually middle school has the stereotype of being pretty rough, pretty tricky.

And then after middle school is high school.

And by that point, you're, what, like 14 years old?

You're a real man.

Like 14 through 18 years old.

So you're not right at the beginning, the cusp of puberty.

Instead, you're a little further in and maybe a little more mature, maybe.

Yeah.

Ninth grade is still kind of awkward.

Ninth grade is still pretty awkward.

Because when you're in ninth grade and you're like 14 or 15, and then you see like a 17 or 18-year-old.

A lot of the, especially if you're a guy like me, puberty can hit all of a sudden and then you'll be a man versus like I was, a boy.

A little boy when you're in ninth grade.

Hi, guys.

Yeah.

So this is the typical progression of school.

And there's a couple of different options in the US.

You could go to public school, which is free.

It's paid for by your taxes.

So if you pay taxes, it's technically not free.

Free not free.

Yes, free not free.

It's paid for by the state.

You could go to public school.

You could go to a public charter school.

So this is kind of a nuance where you don't have to pay extra to go to a charter school, but it's somehow-

It's run privately.

It's run privately.

It's smaller.

Usually the programs have a little bit higher quality.

And to get into a charter school, you often need to do a lottery.

And this isn't like the lottery where you try to win a million dollars.

This is where you just sign up and they pull a kid's name out of a hat.

Totally random.

And if you get it, you get it.

And if you don't, you don't.

So it's not based on your income.

It's not based on where you live.

Because most public schools are based on where you live.

You have to go to the school in your neighborhood.

Yeah.

But a charter school-

Kind of stinks.

Yeah.

Especially if you live in an area that's really poor, well, your school is probably not going to be very high quality.

And there's a lot of controversy about that because it's kind of a cycle.

Yeah.

It's definitely a cycle.

You don't have as many resources to get out of poverty and all of that.

So we've got public school, charter school, private school.

I have a little statistic here I looked up in advance, fancy.

Private schools, 9% of students go to a private school and parents have to pay extra for a private school.

It could be a religious private school.

It could be a secular private school.

Our child, Theo-

He's probably in the 1% because he goes to a nature school.

It's not religious based.

He's in the 0.5%.

It's a very unusual private school, but there's also other types of private schools, like a nature school where half of the day they spend time outside in the woods or the teachers try to incorporate the outside nature into the lessons.

A lot of times these schools will call themselves alternative education.

So that just means we're trying to do something different here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's varying degrees of quality.

Just because you're paying for it doesn't mean that it's going to be vastly better quality than the free public school.

So if you come to the US and you think, I want my kid to have the best education, I think I can afford to pay for private school, make sure you check it out first and make sure that it's actually the quality that you want.

There are a lot of scholarships actually.

So the school that our son goes to, a lot of people have an 80% scholarship to go to the school, which makes it very affordable.

The state has scholarships.

The school provides some scholarships.

There's some grants given to the school to provide scholarships.

So they're trying to make it more accessible.

Yeah.

Most schools, especially private schools and anything education related, you're going to find a lot of organizations that will try to help kids get into whatever they really, really want.

And the government helps with that as well in America.

I think a lot of it comes down to the parents having the ability to sign up, follow through with the applications, sign up for the scholarship.

That doesn't mean it's easy.

It doesn't mean it's easy, but it is an option.

There's a fourth option, which is what Dan experienced when he was a child, homeschooling.

Look at me.

So interestingly enough, what percent of Americans do you think homeschool?

This means that generally, don't peek.

Your mom- This is what I learned in homeschooling.

Your mom or your dad is your teacher, usually your mom.

And there's local organizations that you can join weekly, like a co-op.

They call it a homeschooling co-op.

What percent of American children are homeschooling as of 2021 or 2022?

Well, I would have guessed it was very low.

See, I think I looked at your phone earlier and saw it.

You cheated.

Well, you showed it to me.

Okay.

But I would have guessed like 2% before seeing that.

Okay.

But I think it's higher.

Yes.

The answer is 7%.

Which is pretty high, actually.

It's almost the same amount as go to private school.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

So 7%.

And the interesting thing is-

I guess it probably bumped up after COVID too.

Yes.

That's the big thing.

So before COVID, it was, I think, 4% or 5%.

And now it's 7%.

And it's growing 10% every year.

So it's hard to talk about those stats, but it's growing every year because of all the changes in education.

Yeah.

And public school has gotten kind of like a bad reputation as well.

I mean, there's varying qualities, but a lot of people where they live, their school is not very good.

And it's not just teachers.

It's also like the peers you're with and it's kind of, I don't know.

I mean, obviously I teach at an alternative school, so I don't, I'm not a big fan of the traditional model and I don't like all the bureaucracy and not to say that there's not a lot of good hearted people in the system.

I just think that the system is, well, it might sound a little cliche, but it's broken.

Yeah.

So those are the general options in the US.

And I think the cool thing is that if you choose an alternative option, private school, charter school, homeschooling, it's not seen as very weird.

It's unusual.

It's not the majority, but you're not like an outcast.