1.
Florida
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Florida /ˈflɒrᵻdə/ is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, the Miami metropolitan area is Floridas most populous urban area. The city of Tallahassee is the state capital, much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south, the American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park. It was a location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, the states economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, the Kennedy Space Center, Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known for golf, tennis, auto racing, by the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Ais, the Tocobaga, the Calusa and the Tequesta. Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans, the earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2,1513 and he named the region La Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is a myth, in May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described seeing a wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet. Very soon, many smokes appeared along the whole coast, billowing against the sky, the Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. Both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success, in 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561. Spain maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the tribes to Christianity. The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English settlements to the north, the English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times. Florida attracted numerous Africans and African-Americans from adjacent British colonies who sought freedom from slavery, in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St
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Tallahassee, Florida
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Tallahassee /ˌtæləˈhæsi/ is the capital of the U. S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2015, the population was 189,907, making the city the 126th-largest city in the United States, the population of the Tallahassee metropolitan area was 377,924 as of 2015. Tallahassee is the largest city in the Northwest Florida region as well as the center for trade and agriculture in the Florida Big Bend. Tallahassee is home to Florida State University, ranked the nations thirty-eighth best public university by U. S. News & World Report and it is also home to the Florida A&M University, one of the countrys largest historically black universities by total enrollment. Tallahassee is home to the Florida State Capitol, Supreme Court of Florida, Florida Governors Mansion, the city is also known for its large number of law firms, lobbying organizations, trade associations and professional associations, including the Florida Bar and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. It is also a regional center for scientific research. In 2015, Tallahassee was awarded the All-American City Award by the National Civic League for the second time, Tallahassee is currently ranked as the 18th best college town in the nation by Best College Reviews. During the 17th century several Spanish missions were established in the territory of the Apalachee to procure food, the largest, Mission San Luis de Apalachee, has been partially reconstructed by the state of Florida. They found large areas of cleared land previously occupied by the Apalachee tribe, earlier, the Mississippian Indians built mounds near Lake Jackson around AD1200, which survive today in the Lake Jackson Archaeological State Park. The expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez encountered the Apalachees, although it did not reach the site of Tallahassee, hernando de Soto and his expedition occupied the Apalachee town of Anhaica in what is now Tallahassee in the winter of 1538–1539. Based on archaeological excavations this site is now known to be located about 0.5 miles east of the present Florida State Capitol, the DeSoto encampment is believed to be the first place Christmas was celebrated in the continental United States. During the First Seminole War, General Andrew Jackson fought two separate skirmishes in and around Tallahassee, the first battle took place on November 12,1817. Chief Neamathla, of the village of Fowltown, just west of present day Tallahassee had refused Jacksons orders to relocate, Jackson responded by entering the village, burning it to the ground, and driving off its occupants. The Indians later retaliated, by killing 50 soldiers and civilians, Jackson reentered Florida in March 1818. According to Jacksons adjutant, Colonel Robert Butler, they advanced on the Indian village called Tallahasse two of the enemy were made prisoner, Tallahassee became the capital of Florida during the second legislative session. It was chosen as it was equidistant from St. Augustine and Pensacola. The first session of Floridas Legislative Council—as a territory of the United States—met on July 22,1822 at Pensacola, the second session was in St. Augustine and required western delegates to travel perilously around the peninsula on a twenty-eight-day trek
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United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
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Education in the United States
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Education in the United States is provided by public, private, and home schools. Funding comes from the state, local, and federal government, private schools are generally free to determine their own curriculum and staffing policies, with voluntary accreditation available through independent regional accreditation authorities. About 87% of school-age children attend schools, about 10% attend private schools. Education is compulsory over an age range starting between five and eight and ending somewhere between ages sixteen and eighteen, depending on the state and this requirement can be satisfied in public schools, state-certified private schools, or an approved home school program. In most schools, education is divided into three levels, elementary school, middle or junior school, and high school. Children are usually divided by age groups into grades, ranging from kindergarten and first grade for the youngest children, there are also a large number and wide variety of publicly and privately administered institutions of higher education throughout the country. Post-secondary education, divided into college, as the first tertiary degree, the United States spends more per student on education than any other country. In 2014, the Pearson/Economist Intelligence Unit rated US education as 14th best in the world, just behind Russia. In 2015 the Programme for International Student Assessment rated U. S. high school students #40 globally in Math and #24 in Science and Reading. ”King, Jr. acknowledged the results in conceding U. S. students were well behind their peers. According to a report published by the U. S. News & World Report, of the top ten colleges and universities in the world, government-supported and free public schools for all began to be established after the American Revolution. Between 1750 and 1870 parochial schools appeared as ad hoc efforts by parishes, historically, many parochial elementary schools were developed which were open to all children in the parish, mainly Catholics, but also Lutherans, Calvinists and Orthodox Jews. Nonsectarian Common schools designed by Horace Mann were opened, which taught the three Rs and also history and geography, States passed laws to make schooling compulsory between 1852 and 1917. They also used federal funding designated by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of 1862 and 1890 to set up land grant colleges specializing in agriculture, by 1870, every state had free elementary schools, albeit only in urban centers. His movement spread to many other Southern states to small colleges for Colored or Negro students entitled A. & M. or A. & T. some of which later developed into state universities. By 1910,72 percent of children attended school, private schools spread during this time, as well as colleges and — in the rural centers — land grant colleges also. Between 1910 and 1940 the high school movement resulted in increasing public high school enrollment. By 1930,100 percent of children attended school, during World War II, enrollment in high schools and colleges plunged as many high school and college students dropped out to take war jobs. The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v, in 1965, the far-reaching Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed as a part of President Lyndon B
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History of education in the United States
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The first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States, the first free taxpayer-supported public school in North America, the Mather School, was opened in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1639. At first, the rudiments of literacy and arithmetic were taught inside the family, literacy rates were much higher in New England because much of the population had been deeply involved in the Protestant Reformation and learned to read in order to read the Scriptures. Literacy was much lower in the South, where the Anglican Church was the established church, single working-class people formed a large part of the population in the early years, arriving as indentured servants. The planter class did not support public education but arranged for private tutors for their children, by the mid-19th century, the role of the schools in New England had expanded to such an extent that they took over many of the educational tasks traditionally handled by parents. All the New England colonies required towns to set up schools, in 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made proper education compulsory, other New England colonies followed this example. Similar statutes were adopted in colonies in the 1640s and 1650s. The schools were all male and all white, with few facilities for girls, in the 18th century, common schools were established, students of all ages were under the control of one teacher in one room. Although they were supplied at the local level, they were not free. Students families were charged tuition or rate bills, the larger towns in New England opened grammar schools, the forerunner of the modern high school. The most famous was the Boston Latin School, which is still in operation as a high school. Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut, was another, by the 1780s, most had been replaced by private academies. By the early 19th century New England operated a network of high schools, now called prep schools, typified by Phillips Andover Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy. They became the major feeders for Ivy League colleges in the mid-19th century and these prep schools became coeducational in the 1970s, and remain highly prestigious in the 21st century. Residents of the Upper South, centered on the Chesapeake Bay, in late 17th century Maryland, the Catholic Jesuits operated some schools for Catholic students. Generally the planter class hired tutors for the education of their children or sent them to private schools, during the colonial years, some sent their sons to England or Scotland for schooling. In March 1620, George Thorpe sailed from Bristol for Virginia and he became a deputy in charge of 10,000 acres of land to be set aside for a university and Indian school. The plans for the school for Native Americans ended when George Thorpe was killed in the Indian Massacre of 1622, in Virginia, rudimentary schooling for the poor and paupers was provided by the local parish
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Education reform
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Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed, however, since the 1980s, education reform has been focused on changing the existing system from one focused on inputs to one focused on outputs. In the United States, education reform acknowledges and encourages public education as the source of K-12 education for American youth. Education reformers desire to make public education into a market, where accountability creates high-stakes from curriculum standards tied to standardized tests, as a result of this input-output system, equality has been conceptualized as an end point, which is often evidenced by an achievement gap among diverse populations. This conceptualization of education reform is based on the market-logic of competition, as a consequence, competition creates inequality which has continued to drive the market-logic of equality at an end point by reproduce the achievement gap among diverse youth. Overall, education reform has and continues to be used as a substitute for needed reforms in the United States. The one constant for all forms of education includes the idea that small changes in education will have large social returns in citizen health, wealth. For example, a stated motivation has been to reduce cost to students, from ancient times until the 1800s, one goal was to reduce the expense of a classical education. Ideally, classical education is undertaken with a highly educated full-time personal tutor, historically, this was available only to the most wealthy. Encyclopedias, public libraries and grammar schools are examples of innovations intended to lower the cost of a classical education, related reforms attempted to develop similar classical results by concentrating on why, and which questions neglected by classical education. Abstract, introspective answers to these questions can theoretically compress large amounts of facts into relatively few principles and this path was taken by some Transcendentalist educators, such as Amos Bronson Alcott. In the early age, Victorian schools were reformed to teach commercially useful topics, such as modern languages and mathematics, rather than classical subjects, such as Latin. Many reformers focused on reforming society by reforming education on scientific, humanistic, pragmatic or democratic principles. John Dewey and Anton Makarenko are prominent examples of such reformers, some reformers incorporated several motivations, e. g. Maria Montessori, who both educated for peace, and to meet the needs of the child. Reform has taken many forms and directions, throughout history and the present day, the meaning and methods of education have changed through debates over what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an educated society. Changes may be implemented by individual educators and/or by broad-based school organization and/or by curriculum changes with performance evaluations, Plato believed that children would never learn unless they wanted to learn. Compulsory learning never sticks in the mind, an educational debate in the time of the Roman Empire arose after Christianity had achieved broad acceptance. Though educational reform occurred on a level at various points throughout history
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Primary education in the United States
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Primary education in the United States refers to the first eight years of formal education in most jurisdictions, often in elementary school. Preschool programs, which are formal and usually not mandated by law, are generally not considered part of primary education. The first year of education is commonly referred to as kindergarten. Subsequent years are usually numbered being referred to as first grade, second grade, elementary schools normally continue through sixth grade, which the students normally complete when they are age 11 or 12. In 2001, there were 92,858 elementary schools in the United States, some private schools, and some public schools, are offering pre-kindergarten as part of elementary school. The first three to five years of a life can be the most critical period of their education. Since 1965, the government has promoted the growth of state-funded programs such as Head Start. In 2007, it served over 22 million preschool-aged children and their families, Head Start works to educate the whole child in addition to providing health and nutrition services to low-income families. Students may attend either a 6-year or 7-year public or private elementary school, elementary school usually runs from kindergarten through either grade 5 or grade 6, depending on the region. Upon successful completion of their elementary education students then proceed to middle school, additionally, students may have the option of attending elementary schools that include all eight primary grades. In this case the student will proceed to High School. In most U. S. elementary schools, students have all their classes from one or two homeroom teachers. In some elementary schools, when funding and supplies are adequate, additional teachers are hired to students in areas such as Art. Education in the United States Education in New York City Homeschooling in the United States Secondary education in the United States Primary education Primary school
8.
Secondary education in the United States
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The United States historically had a demand for general skills rather than specific training/apprenticeships. It recommended twelve years of instruction, consisting of eight years of education followed by four years of high school. At the turn of the 20th Century, it was common for high schools to have entrance examinations which restricted entrance to fewer than 5 percent of the population in preparation for college, most were expected to be ready for a job or a family after junior high school. The first public schools started around the 1830s and 40s within the wealthier areas of similar income levels. There was a shift towards local decision making by school districts, the shift from theoretical to a more practical approach in curriculum also resulted in an increase of skilled blue-collar workers. The open enrollment nature and relatively relaxed standards, such as ease of repeating a grade, there was an increase in educational attainment, primarily from the grass-roots movement of building and staffing public high schools. In 1954 the Supreme Court case Brown v. By 1955, in 1965 the far-reaching Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnsons War on Poverty, provided funds for primary and secondary education while explicitly forbidding the establishment of a national curriculum and it emphasized equal access to education and established high standards and accountability. The bill also aimed to shorten the achievement gaps between students by providing every child with fair and equal opportunities to achieve an exceptional education, after 1980, the growth in educational attainment decreased, which caused the growth of the educated workforce to slow down. Pressure to allow people and organizations to create new Charter schools developed during the 1980s and were embraced by the American Federation of Teachers in 1988. These would be legally and financially autonomous public school free from state laws and district regulations. Minnesota was the first state to pass a school law in 1991. By 2009 charter schools were operating in 41 states and 59% of these had waiting lists, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required all public schools receiving federal funding to administer a statewide standardized test annually to all students. Standards-based education has been embraced in most states which changed the measurement of success to academic achievement, by 2006, two-thirds of students lived in states with effective standards requiring passing tests to ensure that all graduates had achieved these standards. Great indirect authority is, however, exercised through federal funding of national programs, the U. S. government may also propose, but cannot enforce national goals, objectives and standards, which generally lie beyond its jurisdiction. Many high schools in the United States offer a choice of vocational or college prep curriculum, the level of specialization allowed varies depending on both the state and district the school is located in. Many states require that courses in the areas of English, science, social studies. The majority of high schools require four English credits to graduate, generally, three science courses are required
