Talk:Primary education in the United States

Merge grades
There are currently articles first grade, second grade, third grade, etc. that are almost entirely focused on the U.S. (though they make vague efforts to include some mention of other countries). To the extent that these are U.S.-centric articles they are improperly named and should either be named with specific mention of the geography or merged here. If one wants to make them truly generic topics then they still have to be renamed since what consitutes 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. varies with the geography (presumably they'd have to be named based on age groups as I know of no universally recognized terminology).

My personal opinion is that these articles should simply be merged into this one. My thinking:
 * Though there is a lot of notable things that can be said about commonalities and contrast between primary education systems around the world, it is difficult to say a lot that is meaningful about education around the world for any specific year of education. For example, making distinct articles about education around the world for 6-7 year-olds versus 7-8 year-olds is very difficult since there would be such a high degree of overlap between the articles when taking a worldwide perspective (i.e. the articles would end up being very similar since it would be hard to say there there are distinctions between the grade levels that apply globally).
 * Even if we retitle the articles to focus strictly on the U.S., the question is how much notability is there really in creating distinct articles that talk about, say, 3rd grade around the entire U.S.? I won't say that there aren't unique things that can be said but, frankly, unless someone is coming forward to say they are going to turn these into fully fleshed out articles in the next couple of months I'd say let's merge these for now. These stubs, to my thinking, serve no real purpose as they are now and there is nothing to indicate that making detailed articles out of them would serve a real purpose either.

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:11, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

keep- less detail if merged?andycjp (talk) 22:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Delete- I agree - it's impossible to generalize about different grade levels - there is simply too much variationBobTheCactus (talk) 28 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.195.139.49 (talk)

Please review and develop the new Elementary school (United States) article
I have split out a new article, Elementary school (United States) using content from Primary education (which in turn came from the Primary school and Elementary school articles). I am not from the USA and know little about your schools, but it was clear to me that an article on this subject was notable following a discussion on talk:Elementary school. PeterEastern (talk) 17:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. In the US, there is a clear division between Secondary Schools, which are always "High Schools" (Prep schools in the old days. grades 9 through 12) and Primary schools (grades 1 to 8). The latter may include Elementary schools which are 1-8 or less. If less, there are middle schools in between, part of primary schools. Student7 (talk) 20:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Confusion about education categories
This article is inconsistent and confusing. It describes U.S. primary education as being the first 8 years of education, followed by 4 years of secondary education. It also states that elementary education is an equivalent term. Then: "The first year of primary education is commonly referred to as kindergarten and begins at or around age 5. Subsequent years are usually numbered being referred to as first grade, second grade, and so forth." Total years are now 13, not 12. (High school seniors are in twelfth grade.)

After this the article meanders off topic entirely. "Elementary schools normally continue through fifth grade but in some cases may include the sixth grade," I believe this is intended to refer specifically to the common meaning of elementary school, but it's placement causes it to be confounded with the concept of primary (elementary) and secondary education. A discussion of how grades levels are grouped together is warranted, but is NOT the same as the distinction between education levels and should be put in a separate heading. Also, I'm not at all sure how common it is, but it is common in New England (at least) for elementary schools to be grades K-4, with 5-8 as middle school. After that it has a section concerning preschool, which isn't at all an official part of U.S. primary education. The last section is closer to on topic, but has very little to do with "Primary Education" and more to do with "Education Year Grouping".

I suggest that the article requires a complete rewrite. I'll attempt to make some adjustments in that direction in the near future. LordQwert (talk) 01:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

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