Originally posted by KingsGambit
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It used to be the case in the U.S. that there were not just separate programs but separate schools for college preparation vs other.
Typically everyone went to an elementary school for about 3 years to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.
After which you either:
1) went to a grammar school, which prepared you for college admission, or
2) you went to an "academy" to get a bit more general ed without the same rigor and without plans to go on to college, or
3) you went straight from elementary into productive work or a tech/voc training or apprenticeship or some such thing.
As time passed, the "academies" shortened in length, and shifted to older students, (as elementary school stretched longer and the average age of college entrants increased), and transformed into modern "high schools".
As colleges/universities wanted access to a larger customer base, they began dumbing-down their admission requirements so as to admit academy students. So then over time grammar schools disappeared.
And option (3) was eliminated by the creation of truancy laws.
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