Comprehensive high schools are the most common form of public high schools in the United States and are meant to serve the needs of all students, as compared to the common practice in other nations in which examinations are used to sort students into different high schools for different populations. Some high schools specialize in University-preparatory school academic preparation, some in remedial instruction, and some in vocational instruction. A typical comprehensive high school offers more than one course of specialization in its program. Comprehensive high schools usually have a college preparatory course and one or more scientific or vocational courses.
Many school districts in the US also have schools tailored to high-performing students and other students who do not succeed best in a comprehensive environment. However, these schools may also have varying numbers of high-performing student classes. This can lead to unpreparedness in post-secondary education.
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or school:
“The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession of a police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The first rule of education for me was discipline. Discipline is the keynote to learning. Discipline has been the great factor in my life. I discipline myself to do everything—getting up in the morning, walking, dancing, exercise. If you won’t have discipline, you won’t have a nation. We can’t have permissiveness. When someone comes in and says, “Oh, your room is so quiet,” I know I’ve been successful.”
—Rose Hoffman, U.S. public school third-grade teacher. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)