Youth in the USA
The powers that differentiate and enumerate whether the federal or state level has adjudi - cating control has been legislated over centu - ries, and is typically decided by the power of the purse – or in other words, by what the fe - deral government will or will not fund at the local level. Basically, if the federal government comes up with a rule and states decide not to follow it, the federal government can deny an appropriation (not pay their annual budget) at their discretion. In trying to understand this complex relationship, it is helpful to think of it in this way – the federal government typically only gets involved in education when there are constitutional rights at risk. This means if there are any policies impacting a student or teacher’s constitutional protections, the fede - ral government will typically intervene. It espe - cially seeks to ensure that there is equal access to education. So while education is not a con - stitutional right, for the federal government it is deemed important enough to warrant cons - titutional protections. The Secondary School System Within K-12 education, there are 130,930 pu - blic schools, with 87,498 of the schools being elementary schools, 26,727 middle schools, 15,804 high schools, and 901 other types of schools.
In the USA, the school system is not graded according to performance levels (as in Germa - ny, for example), but all young people attend a uniform type of school. The performance le - vels of individual students are determined in high school by the choice and completion of subjects and courses of different levels of dif - ficulty and by corresponding grades. The culture and level of resources of schools varies greatly depending on the type of school and the location, including city, suburban, town, or rural schools. Further, socioeconomic conditions within the communities that schools are located play a significant role in the expe - rience of school youth. The four largest school districts in the United States are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami-Dade, which are all city or urban school districts. As of the 2018-2019 school year, the national graduati - on rate from high school is 89 %. However, this rate can vary greatly between schools, districts, and states. Additionally, the average student to teacher ratio in a class is sixteen students assigned to one teacher, but this can also vary depending on the challenges faced by the school. Districts with fewer resources tend to have schools with much larger class sizes. In the U.S. South, it is common to see class - rooms with twenty-two to twenty-five students per class. Schools and districts with fewer re - sources tend to have much larger class sizes,
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