ABSTRACT
The American public school system was designed to provide a “common school” shared educational experience to all school-aged children. This is not the basis for public schooling in other countries. For example, the German tri-partite system is meant to provide distinctly diff erent educational tracks for working-class, technical-class, and ruling-class aspirants. Important distinctions also include diff erent governance structures and diff erences in the articulation of the linkages between lower and higher education. In both nations these institutional underpinnings were formed in the early 19th century. They have persisted largely unchanged for more than a century.
