Whether they call it "middle school" or "junior high school," educator advocates who seek to shine the light on best practices for young adolescent students believe grades 5–9 are pivotal in students' academic careers and should be a key element of school reform.
In the last 10 years, with the intense focus on developing solid reading and math skills in early elementary students, lowering the high school dropout rate, and preparing students for college and careers, the needs of middle school students have been overlooked, say middle school experts.
Part of the problem is that the middle grades, well, fall right in the middle—caught between elementary and high school education. "[Middle schools] overlap those two areas, so most of those legislative dollars go to elementary or secondary levels," says Santo Pino, interim executive director of the National Middle School Association (NMSA). "But if you're going to fix high school, you can't wait until the kids get there. Most of the research says that we start losing the kids in 4th and 5th grades, where they can become disinterested or turned off to school."
In fact, according to the June 2009 NMSA report Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path, a 6th grade student who fails to pass language arts or math, attend school at least 80 percent of the time, or have good behavior will have only a 10–20 percent chance of graduating from high school on time.
Advocates of middle school reform want policymakers to recognize middle schools as the linchpin that ensures students are prepared and motivated for high school work and graduation. Young adolescents have specific academic, social, and emotional needs, educators say, and any efforts to improve student performance must include targeted measures for meeting their learning and developmental needs during this critical transitional point in their academic careers.
The National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, a coalition of more than 45 education associations, foundations, researchers, and practitioners, seeks to raise both policymakers' and educators' awareness about the best practices for learning and teaching in the middle grades. To counter the perception of the middle grades as a hazy no-man's-land between elementary and high school, the Forum drafted a clear, common vision of high-performing middle grades education, says the Forum's Executive Director Deborah Kasak.
Ideally, the middle grades should focus on and integrate three areas: academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and social equity. In the past, middle schools were accused of being soft on academics and too focused on social and emotional development. But that's not true, Kasak says.
Educating students in the middle grades requires pushing high expectations as well as understanding how young adolescents learn. "It's not just enough to be qualified to teach certain subjects; you have to know how to teach those subjects to a 7th grader or a 6th grader, which is much different from teaching those subjects to a high school–age student," Kasak says. "You have to do things that engage them, tapping into the best parts of what a young adolescent is: They have a high sense of what's fair. They want to do things to help others. They want [content] to be [related to the] real world, so that it has relevance to them."
Ignoring the learning needs of young adolescents when designing instructional strategies will leave students, as well as their teachers, feeling frustrated. Young adolescents want to take ownership of their own learning, says Kasak, who suggests incorporating opportunities for problem-based learning and collaborative work where students can talk with their peers.
The more teachers can get students to talk about, reflect on, and show others their learning, the more opportunities their students will have to cross that intellectual threshold of realizing that "I'm not just being told things or sucking in things as education, but I'm beginning to formulate my own ideas about the world in thinking and learning about subjects and how they all relate," Kasak says.
Best Practices in Action
A new survey of 303 California middle grades schools, half of them serving low-income populations, showed that high-performing schools shared a district- and school-wide culture of preparing all students, "from the lowest performing to the highest," for a rigorous high school education. The results were reported in the 2010 study Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better by the California-based, nonpartisan organization EdSource.
Leaders at successful middle grades schools emphasize "extensive review and use of student data, proactive student interventions, and standards-based instruction" as keys to improving student achievement in language arts and math, which is a strong predictor of success in high school and beyond, according to the authors of the EdSource study.
Furthermore, groups such as the NMSA are lobbying for the passage of the Success in the Middle Act as part of pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Success in the Middle Act would funnel $1 billion in annual federal grants to low-performing middle schools that feed into the nation's 2,000 so-called "dropout factory" high schools, which are among the nation's worst-performing secondary schools. An additional $100 million annually would be targeted toward middle school research and dissemination of best practices.
In its Schools to Watch Program, the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform challenges schools to adopt best practices of middle education, which include not only developmentally appropriate practices in the early adolescent classroom, but also buildingwide strategies like teacher team planning, interdisciplinary connections, and the use of data to determine appropriate interventions. A team of outside observers evaluates whether a school can be certified as a model middle grades school.
Culver City Middle School, outside Los Angeles, Calif., is one of about 250 middle grades schools in 19 states involved in the program. Designated as a model school three times since 2003, the grades 6–8 school of 1,530 students is diverse with 42 percent Hispanic, 22 percent white, 20 African American, and 11 percent Asian students. Also, 30 percent of the students receive free- or reduced-price lunch.
In the last five years, Culver City Middle School has seen its California state test score average rise 50 points, surpassing the state performance target.
Principal Jon Pearson points to the school's efforts to continuously grow academic excellence as the key strength of the school. For example, the school gives students three formative assessments in preparation for the state exams, which teachers analyze to determine which interventions students may need and to reteach particular content.
"What's helped us on the state tests is looking at data and giving teachers opportunities to see one another teach and discuss best practices," Pearson explains.
Pearson notes that practices such as teacher teaming have strengthened teaching and learning at the school. Interdisciplinary, grade-level teams of teachers in the core subjects of math, language arts, science, and social studies meet monthly to discuss strategies for instruction and for helping struggling students. Subject-area teachers across grades and within grade levels also meet monthly to plan lessons.
Another important strategy is allowing students to retain the same guidance counselors for all three years. These supportive adults provide additional insight into students' lives "so kids don't slip through the cracks," Pearson says.
Culver City Middle School also has an adult school on campus, where students' parents can improve their English or take part in technology workshops to help them monitor students' grades and attendance online.
Middle school reform may look slightly different from school to school, and Culver City Middle School has adopted certain recognized best practices to meet its students' individual needs. However, regardless of a school's composition and students' socioeconomic level, there are definite practices that can enhance student achievement, Kasak says.
