It's handled at the state level. According to [0], Finland has roughly 600,000 students in what we might call K-12 and according to [1] almost all of our states

It's handled at the state level. According to [0], Finland has roughly 600,000 students in what we might call K-12 and according to [1] almost all of our states each have at least as many students individually and most have more than double. (Not sure what my point was, but it was interesting to find the data :)) [0] http://www.stat.fi/til/opiskt/2007/opiskt_2007_2008-01-25_tie_001_en.html http://www.stat.fi/til/opiskt/2007/opiskt_2007_2008-01-25_ti... (Basic comprehensive school education, compulsory education school) [1] http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-26.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-26.pdf (adding elementary and high school columns together for K-12)