有關美國教育的英語文章
美國作為政策學科的起源國,其政策研究已發展到一定水平,教育政策研究也得到了長足的發展。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!
篇一
美國的高等教育
Higher Education in America
There is evidence that even incomplete university study gives a person better career prospects than none at all. So, it is accepted that the benefits of a university career are useful.
All this effort in America’s higher education is very expensive. Some of the costs come from fees and benefactions, particularly towards research, but most have to be paid from public funds. Parents favor big expenditures on higher education; a wider public opinion favors them for idealistic and cultural reasons, and because of the supposed value of education as an investment by society.
The first universities were developed by private charitable organizations. The private universities are still very important, and most of the best-known institutions, like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, are private.
Most of the principal state universities have between 10, 000 and 30, 000 students, and some have increased rapidly in the past few years. Private universities and colleges are generally smaller, and although they are more numerous than public institutions they have a smaller total number of students than those in public institutions. The private colleges vary very much in standards and reputation, from the world-famous and select to the cranky and the obscure①. The best known of all is Harvard.
There are also many junior colleges to which students may be admitted at the end of their high school career, providing only the first two years of university work.
For the most part Americans think that there’s some advantage in attending one of the better-known private institutions, in spite of the higher cost, rather than a state university. However, testate universities are becoming increasingly important, and some of them, particularly in the Midwest have a reputation practically equal to that of the private ones. Almost every state by now has several university institutions directly under the authority of the state government.
篇二
美國年輕人看的勵志文章
If you're one in a million in China, there are 1300 people just like you.
在中國，如果你是百萬取一的精英，那麼仍有1300個和你勢均力敵的競爭者。
China will soon become the Number One English-speaking country in the world.
中國將很快成為世界上說英語***論壇***人數最多的國家。
The 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's is greater than the total population of the United States.
在印度，智商前25%的人比美國的總人口還多。
There are over 200 million registered users on MySpace. If MySpace were are country, it would be the 5th largest in the world.
社交網站MySpace有超過2億註冊使用者。如果MySpace是一個國家的話，它將是世界第五大國。
There are about 540,000 words in the English languae, about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare's time.
現今的英文單詞約有54萬個之巨，為莎士比亞時代的五倍。
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years, for students starting a 4 year technical degree this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.
新科技的資訊量每2年就增長一倍，這對於4年制理工學生的意義是，一年級時學的知識有一半到了三年級就過時了。
Predictions are that by 2049, a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.
預測到2049年，一部1千美元的電腦將超越全球人腦的運算能力總和。
篇三
美國教育的變化
The biggest "infrastructure" challenge for the United States in the next decade is not the billions needed for railroads, highways and energy. It is the American school system, from kindergarten through the Ph.D. program and the postgraduate education of adults. And it requires something far scarcer than money -- thinking and risk-taking.
在下一個十年中，美國所遇到的最大的“基礎結構”的挑戰並不是花費幾十億美元用於鐵路、公路和能源，而是美國的教育制度――從幼兒園到博士的培養計劃以及成人的教育。這需要的是比金錢更寶貴的東西――思考和冒險。
The challenge is not one of expansion. On the contrary, the rapid growth in enrollment over the last 40 years has come to an end. By 1978, more than 93 percent of young people entering the labor force had at least an eighth-grade education. So even if the birthrate should rise somewhat, little expansion is possible for elementary and secondary school enrollments.
這種挑戰不是推廣教育的挑戰;相反的情況是過去40年裡入學人數的快速增長已經結束。到1978年，進入勞動大軍的93%以上的青年人都至少受過8年教育。所以，即使人口出生率有所上升，小學和中學的入學人數也只是小幅度的增長。
The last 30 years of social upheaval are also over. Busing will continue to be a highly emotional issue in a good many large cities. And there will still be efforts to use schools to bring women into fields such as engineering that have traditionally been considered "male." But this shift has already been accomplished in many fields: half or more of the accounting students in graduate schools of business, for example, are now women. As for most other social issues, the country will no longer try to use schools to bring about social reform. It's becoming increasingly clear to policy makers that schools cannot solve all the problems of the larger community.
過去30年的社會動盪已經結束。用校車接送學生在許多大城市裡仍將是一個帶有高度感情色彩的問題。人們還將繼續努力通過學校教育讓婦女進軍一些傳統上被認為是屬於“男性”的領域，如工程領域。但這種轉換在許多領域已經完成。例如，現在在商學院會計專業的學生中，半數或半數以上的是女生。至於大部分別的社會問題，國家不會再利用學校來帶動社會變革。決策者們愈加清晰：學校不能解決事關較大社會範圍的全部問題。
Instead, the battle cry for the '90s will be the demand for performance and accountability. For 30 years, employers have been hiring graduates for their degrees rather than their abilities; employment, pay and often even promotion have depended on one's diploma. Now many major employers are beginning to demand more than the completion of school. Some of the major banks, for example, are studying the possibility of entrance examinations that would test the knowledge and abilities of graduates applying for jobs.
相反，90年代的強烈呼聲將是要求工作表現和能承擔責任。30年來，僱主們僱傭畢業生時只考慮學位而不是他們的能力;就業、薪水、甚至是提升常取決於文憑。現在，許多大僱主已經開始不僅僅看重完成學業。例如，一些大銀行正在研究進行求職考試的可行性以便測試畢業生的知識和能力。
Students and parents, too, will demand greater accountability from schools, on all levels. It will be increasingly common to go to law against school districts and colleges for awarding degrees without imparting the skills that are supposed to go along with them. And many young people are already switching to practical "hard" subjects. Caring little about the so-called "youth culture" and the media, they have been shifting from psychology into medicine, from sociology into accounting and from black studies into computer programming.
學生和家長也對各類學校提出了更高的要求。將學區和學院告到法庭，因為它們只授予學位而沒有傳授學位所要求的技能，這種情況將會越來越多。許多年輕人已經開始轉向實用的“硬體”課程，他們很少關心所謂的“青年文化”和媒體報道，已經從心理學轉向醫學，從社會學轉到會計學，從黑人研究轉向計算機程式設計。
Demand for education is actually going up, not down. What is going down, and fairly fast, is demand for traditional education in traditional schools.
對於教育的需要事實上是在上升而不是在下降。正在下降而且下降得相當快的是對傳統學校的傳統教育的需求。
Indeed, the fastest growing industry in America today may be the continuing professional education of highly schooled adults. Much of it takes place outside the education establishment -- through companies, hospitals and government departments that run courses for managerial and professional employees; or through management associations and trade associations. In the meantime, any number of private enterprises are organizing courses, producing training films and tapes and otherwise taking advantage of growth opportunities that universities shy away from.
實際上，當今美國增長最快的產業可能是已上了不少學的成年人的繼續職業教育。這種教育大多是在教育機構進行的，通過公司、醫院和政府部門進行的，這些單位為其聘用的管理人員和專業人員開設課程，或者通過管理協會或行業協會進行。與此同時，許多私人企業安排課程，製作用於培訓的電影和磁帶，並以其他方式利用著各種增長的機會，而這些機會是大學避而不用的。
The demand for continuing education does not take the form that most observers, including this writer, originally expected -- namely, "Great Books" classes for adults wanting to learn about the humanities, the arts, the "life of the mind." We face instead a growing demand for advanced professional education: in engineering and medicine, in accounting and journalism, in law and in administration and management.
對繼續教育的要求不是採取大多數觀察者、包括本文作者原來預期的形式――即給想了解人文學科、藝術和心理的活動的成年人用“大部頭書”上課。相反，我們面對的是對高階職業教育提出的日益增長的要求。如在工程和醫療、會計和新聞、法律和行政管理及經營方面。
Yet the adults who come back for such studies also demand what teachers of professional subjects are so rarely able to supply: a humanistic perspective that can integrate advanced professional and technical knowledge into a broader universe of experience and learning. Since these new students also need unconventional hours -- evenings, weekends or high-intensity courses that stuff a term's work into two weeks ?their demands for learning bring a vague but real threat to the school establishment.
然而，重返學校進行這類學習的成年人所要求的東西，卻是專業課的老師幾乎不能提供的：一種能把先進的專業技術知識彙集到經驗和學識的更廣闊的普遍體系中的人文主義的觀點。由於這些學生需要利用業餘時間學習，如晚上、周未或者說把一學期的內容濃縮成兩週的高強度的課程――他們對知識的需求給學校體制帶來不易察覺但卻真實的威脅。
The greatest challenge to education is likely to come from our new opportunities for diversity. We now have the chance to apply the basic findings of psychological, developmental and educational research over the last 100 years: namely, that no one educational method fits all children.
教育的最大挑戰很可能源於我們對多樣性選擇的新機遇之中。我們現在可以應用過去100年中心理、發展教育等方面研究的成果，但任何一種教育方法不可能適合所有的兒童。
Almost all children are capable of attaining the same standards within a reasonable period of time. All but a few babies, for instance, learn to walk by the age of two and to talk by the age of three, but no two get there quite the same way.
幾乎所有的兒童都能夠在一個合理的時間內達到同樣的水平。例如，除了極個別嬰兒外，所有的孩子兩歲學會走路，三歲會說話，但決沒有兩個孩子會按照完全一樣的步驟獲得這兩種技能。
So too at higher levels. Some children learn best by rote, in structured environments with high certainty and strict discipline. Others gain success in the less structured "permissive" atmosphere of a "progressive” school. Some adults learn out of books, some learn by doing, some learn best by listening. Some students need prescribed daily doses of information; others need challenge and a high degree of responsibility for the design of their own work. But for too long, teachers have insisted that there is one best way to teach and learn, even though they have disagreed about what that way is.
在更高一級的水平上也是如此。一些孩子最適宜在非常穩定、紀律嚴明和規程嚴謹的環境中，靠死記硬背學習;而另一些孩子則能夠在“進步的”學校裡那種規程不甚嚴格的“隨意”氣氛中取得成功。有些成年人學習依靠書本，另一些人則靠動手，還有一些人靠聽。因此學生規定出每天獲取的資訊量;而另外一些學生需要挑戰性的壓力，需要給自己的學習規劃提出高標準的要求。但是長久以來，教師們堅持認為有一種最好的學習方法，儘管他們對於這種方法仍然各持己見。
A century ago, the greatest majority of Americans lived in communities so small that only one one-room schoolhouse was within walking distance of small children. Then there had to be "one right method" for everybody to learn.
100年前，絕大多數美國人居住在狹小的社群中，這社群小到只有一間校舍，連很小的孩子都可以步行上學。那時，也只能有“一種正確的方法”來讓學生學習。
Today the great majority of pupils in the United States ***and all developed countries*** live in big cities with such density that there can easily be three or four elementary schools -- as well as secondary schools within each child's walking or bicycling distance. This enables students and their parents to choose between alternative routes to learning offered by competing schools.
現在，在美國***和其他發達國家***大部分的小學生都生活在人口稠密的大城市中。在這些城市中，每個孩子步行或騎自行車的距離內，非常容易地也可以找到三四所小學或中學。幾所學校相互競爭使得學生和家長們可以擇校就學。
Indeed, competition and choice are already beginning to infiltrate the school system. Private schools and colleges have shown an unusual ability to survive and develop during a period of rising costs and dropping enrollments elsewhere. All this presents, of course, a true threat to the public school establishment. But economics, student needs and our new understanding of how people learn are bound to break the traditional education monopoly just as trucks and airplanes broke the monopoly of the railroads, and computers and "chips" are breaking the telephone monopoly.
的確，競爭和選擇已經開始參透到學校體制中，在別的學校費用上漲、入學人數下降之時，私立學校和學院卻呈現出非凡的生存和發展能力。這對公立教育體制構成了真正的威脅。但正如卡車和飛機打破了鐵路的壟斷，計算機和“晶片”打破了電話的壟斷一樣，經濟條件、學生需要和我們對於學習過程的新的認識，肯定會打破傳統教育的壟斷。
In the next 10 or 15 years we will almost certainly see strong pressures to make schools responsible for thinking through what kind of learning methods are appropriate for each child. We will almost certainly see great pressure, from parents and students alike, for result-focused education and for accountability in meeting objectives set for individual students. The continuing professional education of highly educated adults will become a third tier in addition to undergraduate and professional or graduate work. Above all, attention will shift back to schools and education as the central capital investment and infrastructure of a “knowledge society.”
在今後的10～15年中，我們肯定會看到：強大的壓力能迫使學校去思考並找出適用於每個孩子的學習方法。我們肯定也會看到來自學生和家長方面的壓力：他們要求重結果型的教育，要求學校要為達到給每個學生制定的目標負起責任來。在本科教育、專職和研究生教育之後還要有高學歷成人的繼續專職教育，這是第三種教育。畢竟，注意力將轉回學校和教育上，把它們看作“知識社會”的重要的基本投資和基礎結構。