Public elementary and secondary education industry

Industry Snapshot

GENERAL INDUSTRY: Education and Training

CAREER CLUSTER: Education and Training

SUBCATEGORY INDUSTRIES: Disabled Education; Elementary School Education; High School Education; Kindergarten Education; Middle School and Junior High School Education

RELATED INDUSTRIES: Corporate Education Services; Day-Care Services; Higher Education Industry; Private Education Industry

ANNUAL DOMESTIC REVENUES:US$982.5 billion (IBIS World, 2024)

NAICS NUMBER: 61

Summary

The public elementary and secondary education industry exists worldwide and is the cornerstone of most countries’ formal education structure, fulfilling a commitment to provide youths with the skills and knowledge necessary for fully functional members of society. Elementary school is the first formal stage of public education, where children are introduced to core skills of literacy and computation, such as reading, writing, and mathematics. Secondary education follows elementary studies and often is split between middle school and high school study levels. Secondary education provides general, technical, and professional curricula and also prepares the higher-achieving students for postsecondary, or “higher,” education.

History of the Industry

American formal education has its roots in the British educational tradition. The curriculum applied in American public schools is derived from ancient ideas about education, dating back to the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.E. and to the medieval schools of the Catholic tradition, grounded in Aristotelian philosophy. The fundamental areas of educational concern today match the liberal arts that ancient and medieval scholars believed to be fundamental to the life of the mind and necessary to full human intellectual development.

American secondary education has its origin in the artes liberales of the Middle Ages. These comprise the seven liberal arts, which include the trivium (grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). In the earliest public schools in America, children began their formal education with grammar, considered the “lowliest of the seven arts,” and later advanced to the more difficult subjects and ultimately the quadrivium. Sometimes religion was added to the curriculum to provide a moral component to the educational agenda. Religious teachings at the elementary level traditionally focused on moral teachings and biblical study.

In the tradition of European schools, which channeled education through grammar schools, gymnasia, and university colleges, the North American system offered grammar schools, academies, and liberal arts colleges. Given the religious component of public education in the United States and the fact that public schools also could be counted on to produce religious professionals such as priests as well as counselors, diplomats, physicians, and teachers, it is hardly surprising that churches were from the outset allied with the government in the sponsorship of secondary education. Families tended to seek the highest available education for their children, as a means of improving the living standards of the family, but it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that Americans began to acknowledge a distinction between secondary and higher education. This distinction marked the beginning of the modern era in education.

In the early 1820s, free urban public high schools emerged in the United States to provide alternatives to Latin grammar schools and other private and fee-charging schools. These schools were fostered with the expectation that the secondary education of the country’s youths would promote economic development. The first public high school opened in Boston in 1821. Other major cities in the Northeast soon followed the example; by 1839, twenty-six high schools had been established in Boston, and the trend had spread to Philadelphia and Baltimore. Before long, Latin grammar schools were well established throughout Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. The teachers in these early schools usually were ministers with dedicated teaching missions. These earliest schools were aimed primarily at preparing students to enter colleges, which were strictly for men. By 1851, an estimated eighty cities had established high schools. The curriculum of the Boston schools was typical, encompassing subjects such as English, geography, history, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation, surveying, and natural and moral philosophy.

After the United States gained independence in 1776, new educational movements arose. Most notably, monitorial schools, an educational tradition imported from England, were opened to provide inexpensive general education for the masses. However, these monitorial schools did not last. By 1840, they had all been closed because they had not produced the results to justify their existence. Another educational innovation of the time was the Sunday School, through which churches aimed at providing rudimentary academic and moral education to the poor. Its pioneer, Robert Raikes of Gloucester, wanted to “rescue children of factory workers from their filth, ignorance and sin.” Free School Societies organized and developed monitorial schools, Sunday Schools, and free public schools in Connecticut and New York, and again, the trend soon spread to other areas of the country.

The Industry Today

By the final decade of the twentieth century and first decades of the twenty-first, the enrollment rate in American public schools had reached overwhelming numbers. According to the US Census Bureau, 73.2 million students were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in 2020. Of this number, 48 million were enrolled in prekindergarten through twelfth grade. About 3 million teachers taught in public schools and about 500,000 taught in private schools. The median 2022 salary for teachers in grades K through twelve was $61,690.

Elementary and secondary public schools continue to expand to accommodate the fast-growing American population. Demographic reports from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicate that, nationwide, 500,000 of U.S. public school students were American Indian or Alaska Natives, 2.9 million were Asian/Pacific Islanders, 7.4 million were African American, 14.1 million were Hispanic, 2.3million were multiracial, and 22.4million were white, as of 2021.

Several laws have had, and continue to have, an enormous impact on American educational practices and policies. Among these laws is the Equal Protection Law, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees that “no State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This federal law protects the rights of students in the United States. An important legal milestone in education history was the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), which outlawed institutionalized segregation. As a result, schools sought to balance the quality of education for students of all races by integrating African Americans into public schools previously restricted to white students. Another critical law affecting education is the Equal Access to Federal Financial Assistance Law, or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in financial assistance on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity. This law continues to guarantee universal financial access to Department of Education funding in all educational settings. Another important law is the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. This law requires that programs for English language learners (ELLs) be held to high standards and meet special needs of the broad cultural and linguistic diversity of American students. This law continues to play a crucial role in the United States’ linguistically diverse student population.

One law that had an important (and highly controversial) impact on American education is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which President George W. Bush signed in 2001 in an effort to improve the educational standards of America’s public schools. This law is the key conduit through which federal funds are directed to state departments of education for operations and administration of schools. NCLB holds schools and states accountable for students’ academic performance by requiring the public reporting of students’ scores known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports. The objectives of NCLB are to make schools accountable for results, to give states and communities freedom in distributing federal funds, to use effective educational methods, and to provide parents with informed options regarding school choice for their children. With the passage of the federal NCLB Act, all states are now expected to publicly announce standards, standardized tests, and accountability methods. Standardized tests are to be conducted in reading and mathematics from grades three through eight. Science was added to the list in 2008, from grades nine through twelve.

Since testing has become standardized, accountability has come under harsh criticism from parents and educators. Corporate and political leaders have defended the program of standardized tests, arguing that this is the only way that students and the nation can monitor educational quality and student performance. The NCLB additionally requires that a school failing to meet AYP goals must provide students with options for seeking supplemental instructions, such as tutoring, after-school programs, remedial classes, or summer school. These programs should be provided by nonprofit agencies or for-profit agencies funded by the students’ schools. Schools failing to meet AYP goals for four years must take drastic corrective measures that involve replacing school faculty, introducing new curricula, and appointing an expert to advise the school.

The student assessment requirements under Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA) Title 1-A began with the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA) of 1994, which required “contributing states to adopt curriculum content standards, pupil performance standards, and assessment” for subjects like mathematics and reading/language arts. The NCLB Act expanded these requirements and demanded that contributing states implement assessments relative to state content and align academic achievement standards for every student in every state.

Special education programs form a crucial element of elementary and high school education in the United States. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), enacted in 1975, mandates that children and young people with disabilities be provided public education.

The current economic downturn has since taken its toll on education, and curriculum restrictions tend to be the first signs of fiscal cutbacks. Curriculum often is vulnerable as well to the vicissitudes of public opinion. For example, art, music, and physical education often are the first programs to be cut during budget shortfalls, despite evidence that student performance in mathematics has been shown to be improved by exposure to music instruction. Social studies now receives more attention in many public schools than does spelling. Physical education enjoys fluctuating popularity; at the present time, the addition of physical health components to the curriculum, whether in the form of structured sporting activities or simple free play during recess, are receiving renewed attention, and efforts are currently being made to recruit instructors in the area. New subjects have been added to the curriculum as society recognized growing needs; these include sex and health education, conflict resolution, and multicultural studies, among others.

The structure, administration, and curricula in American schools evolve with changing times and societal needs. Teachers are increasingly becoming specialized experts in their fields, especially in the subject areas of art, speech correction, and counseling, among others. Public schools also are being used as a venue for addressing diverse societal problems, such as poverty and child hunger. Programs that provide federally subsidized or free lunches are available in most public schools. Furthermore, a great variety of extracurricular activities have been introduced in the majority of elementary and secondary schools.

Industry Outlook

Overview

This industry’s history demonstrates that public education is a stable area of employment for a great variety of functionaries and experts. Although school funding varies widely and depends on many factors, including population demographics, geographical location, and the economy, teachers and other education personnel always will be needed to ensure the education of millions of youths. Government regulations and standards concerning the goals and practices of public education will be a major factor in determining the employment outlook and job security of workers in this industry. Among the major concerns in public elementary and secondary education are achievement gaps based on race, gender, and socioeconomic status; raising the achievement of students whose first language is not English; and improving literacy across the board.

Efforts in the United States to improve secondary education often focus on the size and structure of large schools. With the support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation and other nonprofit groups, the New York City school system has completed significant experimentation with small high schools in an effort to enhance secondary education. The Los Angeles Unified School District also has executed a plan to reorganize its high schools, creating smaller “learning clusters” in an effort to provide a more intimate and supportive learning environment.

American public schools continue to suffer shortages of teachers at the primary through high school levels, especially in mathematics, sciences, and special education. The National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, and the U.S. Department of Education have linked mathematics and science teacher shortfalls to overall quality of education and future economic and technological development. Some states, such as Arizona, have raised math and science requirements for high school students, further increasing demand for teachers in these subjects.

Employment Advantages

Teachers and other workers in the public education industry play a critical and influential role in the intellectual and social development of young people. They have the opportunity to enrich lives, provide opportunities, and motivate children to greater achievement.

Among those subject areas that are most in demand are mathematics, sciences, special education, English as a second language, and foreign languages. All states require certification of teachers, while recruitment standards vary from one state to the other. Various schools offer professional development training and other staff-related programs to ensure efficiency of their staff.

Annual Earnings

The total revenue earned in the elementary and secondary public schools combined has increased in recent years. Between 2009–2010 and 2019–2020, public school revenue from federal, state, and local sources increased to $871 billion, according to a 2022 NCES report. Federal funding, the smallest source, increased to $66 billion; state funding increased to $414 billion; and local revenue increased to $390 billion. Revenue and its rate of increase also varies by state. According to a 2024 report from IBIS World, public school revenue was $982.5 billion in 2024.

Bibliography

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