1. 8th grade is the end of middle school/junior high for a lot of U.S. school systems
2. Like I said before, all families are different and don't all give their children money for school accomplishments, it doesn't necessarily have to do with how much money they have
Ok. The foreign school system is just a mess to me. Here's the Swedish one: 0-2nd grade (6 years old to 8) is elementary school. (the 0 is a sort of preschool, the real school environment starting in 1st grade) 3rd-6th grade (9 to 12) is middle school. 7th-9th grade (13 to 15) is high school. After that there comes (don't really know the name in English but..) gymnasium/senior high school which isn't really mandatory but very very few skip it still. The usual length is 3 years.
I've never received anything from my parents related to school. My ultimate conclusion is that they're poor. Which probably isn't far from the truth.
