34.
General Pattern of Education in the USA
The general pattern of education in the USA is an eight-year elementary school, followed by a four-year high school. This has been called 8—4 plan organization. It is proceeded, in many localities, by nursery schools and kindergartens. It is followed by a four-year college and professional schools. This traditional pattern, however, has been varied in many different ways. The 6—3— 3 plan consists of a six-year elementary school, a three-year junior high school, and a three-year senior high school. Another variation is a 6—6 plan organization, with a six-year elementary school followed by a six-year secondary school.American education provides a program for children, beginning at the age of 6 and continuing up to the age of 16 in some of the states, and to 18 in others.
The elementary school in the United States is generally considered to include the first six or eight grades of the common-school system, depending upon the organization that has been accepted for the secondary school. It has been called the “grade school” or the “grammar school”.
There is no single governmental agency to prescribe for the American school system, different types of organization and of curriculum are tried out.
The length of the school year varies among the states. Wide variation exists also in the length of the school day. A common practice is to have school in session from 9:00 to 12:00 in the morning and from 1:00 to 3:30 in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. The school day for the lower grades is often from 30 minutes to an hour shorter. Most schools require some homework to be done by elementary pupils. Elementary Schools, High Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning
Elementary Schools, High Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning
There are eight years of elementary schooling. The elementary school is followed by four years of secondary school, or high school. Often the last two years of elementary and the first years of secondary school are combined into a junior high school.
The school year is nine months in length, beginning early in September and sometimes a shorter one in spring. There are slight variations from place to place. Students enter the first grade at the age of six and attendance is compulsory in most states until the age of sixteen or until the student has finished the eighth grade.
The elementary schools tend to be small. The high schools are generally larger and accommodate pupils from four or five elementary schools. A small town generally has several elementary schools and one high school. In some rural communities the one-room country school house still exists. Here may be found from five to twenty-five pupils in grades one through eight, all taught by the same teacher.
Admission to the American high school is automatic on completion of the elementary school. During the four-year high school program the student studies four or five major subjects per year, and classes in each of these subjects meet for an hour a day, five days a week. In addition, the student usually has classes in physical education, music, and art several times a week. If he fails a course, he repeats only that course and not the work of the entire year. Students must complete a certain number of courses in order to receive a diploma, or a certificate of graduation.
Institutions of higher learning supported by public funds are not absolutely free. The state colleges and universities charge a fee for tuition or registration. This fee is higher for those who come from outside the state. Working one’s way through college is commonplace.
Usually there is no admission examination required by a state university for those who have finished high school within the state. Sometimes a certain pattern of high school studies is necessary, however, and some state universities require a certain scholastic average, or average of high school grades.
Private colleges and universities, especially the larger, well-known ones such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, have rigid scholastic requirements for entrance, including an examination.
It usually takes four years to meet the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree.A Master of Arts or Master of Science degree may be obtained in one or two additional years.The highest academic degree is the Doctor of Philosophy.It may take any number of years to complete the original research work necessary to obtain this degree.
Higher Education Institutions
It has become common for the college program to be divided into broad fields,such as languages and literature,the social sciences,the sciences and mathematics, and the fine arts.Many colleges require all freshmen and sophomores to take one or two full-year courses in each of three fields.Certain Courses,such as English or history,may be required for all,with some election permitted in the other fields.
Higher educational institutions usually are governed by a board of regents or a board of trustees.
The executive head of a college or a university is usually called the president. The various colleges or schools which take up a university are headed by deans. Within a school or college there may be departments according to subject matter fields, each of which may be headed by a professor who is designated as department head or chairman. Other members of the faculty hold academic ranks, such as instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. Graduate students who give some part-time service may be designated as graduate assistants or fellows.
Professional education in fields such as agriculture, dentistry, law, engineering, medicine, pharmacy, teaching, etc. is pursued in professional schools which may be part of a university or may be separate institutions which confine their instruction to a single profession. Often two, three, or four years of pre-professional liberal arts education are required before admission to a professional school. Three to five years of specialized training lead to professional degrees such as Doctor of Medicine, Bachelor of Law, etc.
Private and State Colleges and Universities
In general, higher education in the USA may be divided into two broad fields: liberal arts and professional. Each of these fields may be further subdivided into undergraduate and graduate levels. The liberal arts program, on the undergraduate level, may be a two-year junior college course, or a four-year course leading to a degree of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. The four-year course is usually subdivided into a lower division (which may be called the junior college), consisting of the two first years, and the upper division, which is the last two years. The first two years continue the general education and specialization begins in the third year.

35. The American university system, like the primary and secondary education system, is largely decentralized, in large part because the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reserves all powers not granted to the federal government or explicitly denied to the U.S. states "for the States respectively, or to the people." Such a degree of autonomy in higher education is rare.
American universities have developed independent accreditation organizations to vouch for the quality of the degrees they offer. The accreditation agencies rate universities and colleges on criteria such as academic quality—the quality of their libraries, the publishing records of their faculty, and the degrees which their faculty hold. Nonaccredited institutions are perceived as lacking in quality and rigor, and may be termed diploma mills.
Two-year colleges (often but not always community colleges) usually offer the associate's degree such as an Associate of Arts (A.A.). Community colleges are often open admissions, with low tuition. Four-year colleges (which usually have a larger number of students and offer a greater range of studies than two-year colleges) offer the bachelor's degree, such as the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.S.). These are usually primarily undergraduate institutions, although some might have limited programs at the graduate level. Many students earn an associate's degree at a two-year institution before transferring to a four-year institution for another two years to earn a bachelor's degree.[7]
Four-year institutions in the U.S. which emphasize the liberal arts are liberal arts colleges. These colleges traditionally emphasize interactive instruction (although research is still a component of these institutions). They are known for being residential and for having smaller enrollment, class size, and teacher-student ratios than universities. These colleges also encourage a high level of teacher-student interaction at the center of which are classes taught by full-time faculty rather than graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), who do teach classes at Research I and other universities. Most are private, although there are public liberal arts colleges.
Universities are research-oriented institutions which provide both undergraduate and graduate education. Graduate programs grant a variety of master's degrees—such as the Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Science (M.S.), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), or Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)—in addition to doctorates such as the Ph.D.
Some universities have professional schools, which are attended primarily by those who plan to be practitioners instead of academics (scholars/researchers). Examples include journalism school, business school, medical schools (which usually award the M.D.), law schools (J.D.), veterinary schools (D.V.M.), and dental schools.
Except for the United States service academies and staff colleges, the federal government does not directly regulate universities, although it can give federal grants to them. The majority of public universities are operated by the states and territories, usually as part of a state university system.
Many private universities also exist. Among these, some are secular while others are involved in religious education.
Most universities, public and private, have endowments.
The majority of both liberal arts colleges and public universities are coeducational; the number of women's colleges and men's colleges has dwindled in past years and nearly all remaining single-sex institutions are private liberal arts colleges.
36. Colleges and universities in the U.S. vary in terms of goals: some may emphasize a vocational, business, engineering, or technical curriculum while others may emphasize a liberal arts curriculum. Many combine some or all of the above.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 was the first piece of United States federal legislation in regards to minority language speakers. The bill was introduced in 1967 by Texas senator Ralph Yarborough. Its purpose was to provide school districts with federal funds to establish educational programs for students with limited English speaking ability. The bill was originally intended for Spanish-speaking students, but in 1968 merged into the all-encompassing Bilingual Education Act or Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The act encouraged instruction in English and multicultural awareness in the wake of the Civil Rights movement although it did not require bilingual programs. The act also gave school districts the opportunity to provide bilingual education programs without violating segregation laws.
Reform efforts in the 1980s
In the 1980s, some of the momentum of education reform moved from the left to the right, with the release of A Nation at Risk, Ronald Reagan's efforts to reduce or eliminate the United States Department of Education. In the latter half of the decade, E.D. Hirsch put forth an influential attack on one or more versions of progressive education, advocating an emphasis on "cultural literacy"--the facts, phrases, and texts that Hirsch asserted every American had once known and that now only some knew, but was still essential for decoding basic texts and maintaining communication. Hirsch's ideas remain significant through the 1990s and into the 21st century, and are incorporated into classroom practice through textbooks and curricula published under his own imprint.
[edit] Reform efforts in the 1990s
Main article: Standards based education reform
Most states and districts in the 1990s adopted outcome-based education in some form or another. A state would create a committee to adopt standards, and choose a performance-based assessment to assess whether the students knew the required content or could perform the required tasks.
OBE reforms usually had other disputed methods, such as constructivist mathematics and whole language, larded onto them. Some proponents advocated replacing the traditional high school diploma with a Certificate of Initial Mastery. Other reform movements were school-to-work, which would require all students except those in a university track to spend substantial class time on a job site.
37. newspapers. About 9,12 newspapers are published today. They are divided into daily, Sunday and weekly depending on fact how often they are published. From the point of view of their content all papers are classified either as the quality or as the popular (yellow press). The wall street journal, usa today, the new york times.. there are about 11000 magazines and periodicals in the US. More than 4000 of them appear as monthly and over 1300 - each week. Some of them have international editions and translated into other languages.
The principles of journalism:
Separation of information from comments: opinion and political view points appear only on the editorial and opinion pages, insistence that views must be properly and fairly stated without intention to mislead the reader; dedication of press.

38. news agencies. 2 US agencies AP(associated press) and UPI (united press international). AP – is the oldest, it has reporters at 122 domestic and 65 foreign bureaus.
The Associated Press (AP) is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributive members of the cooperative.Associated Press also operates The Associated Press Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. The AP Radio also offers news and public affairs features, feeds of news sound bites, and long form coverage of major events.s part of their cooperative agreement with The Associated Press, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. The AP Stylebook has become the de facto standard for news writing in the United States and Canada. The AP employs the "inverted pyramid formula" for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the story's essential meaning and news information.
United Press International (UPI) is a news agency headquartered in the United States with roots dating back to 1907. Once a mainstay in the newswire service along with Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, it began to decline as afternoon newspapers, its chief client category, began to fail with the rising popularity of television news. This decline accelerated after the sale of UPI by the founding Scripps family culminating in two bankruptcies.
In 2000, UPI was purchased by News World Communications, a media company owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.[1] The news wire's daily coverage today includes domestic and international top news, business, entertainment, sports, science, health and "Quirks in the News" through its NewsTrack service, as well as coverage and analysis of emerging threats, the security industry and energy resources. UPI's content is presented in text, video and photo formats. Its news stories are filed in English, Spanish and Arabic.
39.
TELEVISION IN THE USA

There are a lot of commercial and non-commercial stations. Most commercial stations are affiliated with one of the national commercial networks: ABC (American Broadcasting Company), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), or Fox Broadcasting Company. These networks are not television stations or channels or programs. They are not licensed to broadcast. Networks are essentially program distribution companies. They buy programs from independent television production companies and sell these programs to individual television stations. The network is paid by advertisers to insert commercial announcements on the program the network buys.

On the average, American viewers watch TV four hours a day, usually tuned to one of the national commercial networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, or Fox Broadcasting Company. These stations attract about 98 percent of TV audiences. During a sixty-minute TV program, you can expect to see about twelve minutes of commercials.

The commercial networks broadcast a variety of shows: news, drama, soap operas, comedy, sports, music, movies, children`s programs, game shows, and talk shows. There is a lot of competition for viewers, especially during prime time, from 7 to 11 p.m. Ratings, published in the newspapers, measure the audience for the top ten programs.

PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), supported by government and private funding, is the only noncommercial network. It broadcasts more serious drama, performing arts, science, public-affairs documentaries, and educational children`s programs. Sesame Street, the most popular children`s show on PBS, appears on TV stations all over the world. All five networks broadcast twenty-four hours a day.

Some viewers pay to receive a wider selection of programs on cable television. There are up to 500 cable stations. Two well-known ones are HBO (Home Box Office), which shows movies, and CNN (Cable News Network), which specializes in news.

All of the networks have nationwide news programs. All have regularly scheduled news series. Among the most popular are CBS`s Sixty Minutes and PBS`s The MacNeil\Lehrer Newshour. The world`s the most durable TV show is NBC`s Meet the Press. In this show, important political figures and leaders are interviewed by journalists.

All television stations in the US, public or private, must be licensed to broadcast by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent federal agency. Each license is given for a few years only.
Differences between Non-Commercial and Commercial Radio
Commercial is generally very easy for people to understand. Commercial Radio sells advertising using a sales force, charges promotional fees, and involves itself in many ways of profit making business.
Most people do not realize that Non-commercial FM stations are very similar in practice except that all of their income is turned back into the corporation for station growth, upgrades, repairs, salaries, etc. so that the station will never realize a profit. All income is re-invested into the corporation. Non -comms differ from commercial FM stations primarily in that they are not permitted to accept revenue in exchange for broadcasting "spots" (announcements advertising goods and services), yet they may charge for broadcasting programs. The licensee of a non-commercial educational FM station is expected to provide a broadcast schedule that is "non-commercial". Remember, the Congress ordered the FCC to find a way to reserve some channels in the new FM service for educational, instructional, and cultural purposes. The method chosen by the FCC requires that an applicant for one of the reserved channels form a non-profit that is educational in nature.
Presently, non-commercial educational stations may accept advertising for goods and services pro-vided by non-profit organizations. As well, they may receive underwriting and sponsorship spots from national and local businesses to pay for programming. Stations may accept donations from members of the general public and from businesses. Individual donors may be identified by their name, address and a description of their products and services. An example of the extent of this liberalization may be seen by viewing any non-commercial educational "public television" station. Non-commercial educational FM stations operated by churches, schools, and organizations interested in educational formats, have benefited from the FCC policy changes. Local businesses are now potential sources of revenue, and the station can now provide a useful promotional service in return. Programs produced by others may be broadcast, and the cost of airing the programs may be charged to the entity supplying the program.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government, created, directed, and empowered by Congressional statute (see 47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154), and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six strategic goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the media, public safety and homeland security, and modernizing the FCC.[1]
As specified in section one of the Communications Act as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) it is the FCC's mission to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges." The Act furthermore provides that the FCC was created "for the purpose of the national defense" and "for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications."[4]
Consistent with the objectives of the Act as well as the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), the FCC has identified six long-term strategic goals in its 2006-2011 Strategic Plan. These are:
• Broadband: "All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentives to develop and offer such products and services."
• Competition:"Competition in the provision of communication services, both domestically and overseas, supports the Nation's economy. The competitive framework for communications services should foster innovation and offer consumers reliable, meaningful choice in affordable services."
• Spectrum:"Efficient and effective use of non-federal spectrum domestically and internationally promotes the growth and rapid development of innovative and efficient communication technologies and services."
• Media:"The Nation's media regulations must promote competition and diversity and facilitate the transition to digital modes of delivery"
• Public Safety and Homeland Security:"Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defence, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable."
• Modernize the FCC:"The Commission shall strive to be highly productive, adaptive, and innovative organization that maximises the benefits to stakeholders, staff, and management from effective systems, processes, resources, and organizational culture."[5]