public school

자료: Word Origin: public school, http://www.answers.com/topic/public-school

Origin: 1636

Speaking of schools, when the English say public, we[미국인들] say private. The famous public schools of England are run by private governing bodies, charge tuition, take students from throughout the nation, and admit only a chosen few. In America, they would be private schools. But the English speak of them as public because they serve the public welfare, educating the elite of the nation, and because they had their beginnings as endowed public charities, educating children who were too poor to have private tutors.

The earliest record of public school in North America shows a different sense of public developing here. In 1636 the Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony "voted for the erecting a publick Schooll or Colledge in Cambridge." That was none other than the school we now know as Harvard University. Like the English public schools, it charged tuition, drew students from the entire land, and was selective in admissions; but unlike the English, at the time of its founding and for some time after it was supported by public money.

After that, our current American meaning of public school was not long in coming. In 1647 the first public elementary school was established in Massachusetts using public moneys. In 1669 we find mention of "the Publick Schoole in Roxbury," and in 1710 in Boston a committee proposed "to Erect a Brick Building...to be let out for the Support of a Publick writing School in the Town." Massachusetts eventually required the establishment of a public elementary school in any community of at least fifty families. Communities of one hundred or more families were obliged to have a secondary school as well.

Following the American Revolution, education achieved considerable attention as a unifying factor for the nation, one consequence of which was the concept of state public school systems. In government lands opened for settlement, the Continental Congress of 1785 ordained that "There shall be reserved the lot N 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools, within the said township."

자료: Wikipedia, http://www.answers.com/topic/public-school

The term public school has two distinct (and virtually opposite) meanings depending on the location of usage:

• in the United States, Australia and Canada: A school funded from tax revenue and most commonly administered to some degree by government or local government agencies. This usage is synonymous with its British English equivalent, state school. (See also: Public education.)
• in the United Kingdom^[1] and a few other Commonwealth countries: A traditional privately operated secondary school which requires the payment of fees for its pupils, and is quite often a boarding school. This usage is common in the United Kingdom (although can be ambiguous in Scotland). These schools, wherever located, often follow a British educational tradition and are committed in principle to public accessibility. Originally, many were single-sex boarding schools, but most independent schools are now co-educational with both boarders and day-pupils. This usage is synonymous with preparatory school in American English, thoughpreparatory school in British English has a different meaning. (See also: Independent school (UK).)

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The Americas

United States

Main article: Education in the United States

The Seward School, Seattle, Washington.

Public-school education is the most common form of education in the United States and is provided mainly by local governments, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Curricula, funding, teaching, and other policies are set through locally elected school boards by jurisdiction over school districts. The school districts are special-purpose districtsauthorized by provisions of state law. Generally, state governments can and do set minimum standards relating to almost all activities of primary and secondary schools, as well as funding and authorization to enact local school taxes to support the schools—primarily through real property taxes. The federal government funds aid to states and school districts that meet minimum federal standards. School accreditation decisions are made by voluntary regional associations. The first tax-supported public school in America was in Dedham, Massachusetts. The vast majority of adults born in the U.S. have attended a U.S. public school.

Public school is normally split up into three stages: primary (elementary) school (kindergarten to 4th or 5th or 6th grade), junior high (also "intermediate", or "middle") school (5th or 6th or 7th to 8th or 9th) and high school (9th or 10th to 12th, somewhat archaically also called "secondary school"), with some less populated communities incorporating high school as 7th to 12th. Some Junior High Schools (Intermediate Schools) contain 7th to 9th grades or 7th and 8th, in which case the High School is 10th to 12th or 9th to 12th respectively.

The middle school format is increasing in popularity, in which the Elementary School contains kindergarten through 5th grade and the Middle School contains 6th through 8th grade. In addition, some elementary schools are splitting into two levels, sometimes in separate buildings: Primary (usually K-2) and Intermediate (3-4 or 3-5). Some middle schools consist of only 7th and 8th grades.

The K-8th format is also an emerging popular concept, in which students may attend only two schools for all of their K-12 education. Many charter schools feature the K-8 format in which all primary grades are housed in one section of the school while the traditional junior high school aged students are housed in another section of the school.

Some very small school districts, primarily in rural areas, still maintain a K-12 system in which all students are housed in a single school.

In the United States, institutions of higher education that are operated and subsidized by U.S. states are also referred to as "public." However, unlike public secondary schools, public universities charge tuition, though these fees are usually much lower than those charged by private universities, particularly for "in-state" students. Community colleges, state colleges, and state universities are examples of public institutions of higher education. In particular, many state universities are regarded as among the best institutions of higher education in the U.S., though usually they are surpassed in ranking by certain private universities and colleges, such as those of the Ivy League, which are often very expensive and extremely selective in the students they accept. In several states, the administrations of public universities are elected via the general electoral ballot.

(생략/abbr.)