By Del Stover
05/18/04 -- Seeking ways to boost student achievement in the middle grades -- and give more attention to students at a difficult age -- some urban school systems are phasing out middle schools in favor of K-8 buildings.
It's a strategy that some urban educators have advocated for years. Baltimore started its transition to K-8 schools in the 1990s and now has 30. Today, Boston, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Philadelphia are among the big-city districts that have embraced the concept to varying degrees.
Yet even advocates of the K-8 movement warn urban school boards that reconfiguring school buildings alone will not improve the middle grades.
"It's not a silver bullet," says Nancy McGinley, executive director of the Philadelphia Education Fund and chair of a task force overseeing middle-school reform in Philadelphia. "Just redeploying kids to a new building doesn't mean the academic rigor is going to improve. It is just one strategy in our focus on improving the middle grades."
Interest in K-8 schools is sparked partly by concerns about the impersonal nature of large urban middle schools, urban educators say. Students in grades 6-8 are experiencing a challenging period of social and personal development, and those living in poor urban areas face additional challenges that influence academic performance, attendance, and classroom behavior.
"Urban schools can be so horrendously large," says Jaana Juvonen, co-author of Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American Middle School, a recent RAND Corp. study. "There is a lot of talk about meeting the social and emotional needs of young adolescents, but if you look at what is being done . . . we know that in many schools, especially large urban schools, what's implemented" is not meeting student needs.
The smaller learning environment of a K-8 school can, in theory, make it easier for faculty to build a mentoring relationship with students and improve their ability to respond to student needs, says Deborah Kasak, executive director of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. Discipline and attendance also can improve in these smaller, more personal learning environments.
A K-8 model also eliminates the stressful transition to a new school, a transition that research suggests can have a negative impact on young adolescents' academic progress, educators say.
These were some of the reasons cited by Philadelphia schools chief Paul Vallas when he announced a plan to shift most of the city's middle-grade students to K-8 schools over the next few years.
"To not do so is the equivalent of educational malpractice since you can't argue with the facts, and the facts are that large, high-poverty middle schools simply do not work in an urban environment," he told the Associated Press in April.
In Milwaukee, the shift to K-8 schools has been fueled by parent demand, says Superintendent William Andrekopoulos. "They want to send their children to neighborhood schools," he says. "They want their neighborhood schools to go to K-8."
As a result, Milwaukee is expanding its K-8 program to 58 schools next year, up from eight schools in 1997. Some middle schools will remain as magnet programs specializing in the arts and sciences.
For all the promise attributed to K-8 schools, educators involved in middle-grades reform say urban school boards will not be doing their job if they think their work is done once the transition is completed. They must ensure the academic program is rigorous and that teachers receive professional development and administrative support.
Attention also needs to be focused on struggling students, Juvonen says. The high dropout rate reported in many urban school districts has its roots in the academic struggles of middle-grade students, and a greater effort is needed to provide summer school, after-school tutoring, and other intervention strategies.
"Have summer programs available," she advises. "Instead of taking electives, have students take extra academic courses so they catch up. Provide them with more opportunities to do that."
That's good advice. But the reality is that urban school boards have not, in the past, devoted enough attention to ensuring a high-quality middle-grades program, says Hayes Mizell, a distinguished senior fellow of the National Staff Development Council and an educator involved in middle-grades reform.
"It just doesn't get that kind of attention," he says. "I think many school boards, maybe even most, and many of their superintendents, really have not thought through what kind of educational experience they want students in the middle grades to have."
That urban school systems are looking into K-8 schools -- and other aspects of middle-grades reform -- might be spurred in part by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which has raised the stakes on the academic performance of the middle grades.
In New Orleans, Superintendent Tony Amato plans to phase out 12 "failing" middle schools in the next three years.
In Baltimore, school officials have put in place a stronger standards-based curriculum and more faculty training for the middle grades. Other school systems also have announced new initiatives aimed at grades 6-8.
"NCLB is forcing school boards to pay attention," Kasak says. "They're going to have to deal with it more."
Greater attention to academics -- an area where middle schools have come under criticism in the past -- is welcome, says Alfred Arth, a professor of education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
But, whatever configuration is used to educate students in grades 6-8, school boards should not overlook the unique social and developmental issues surrounding those students.
Responding to the non-academic needs of young adolescents was a cornerstone of the middle-school movement in its early years, he says.
These needs have been increasingly overlooked, however, as high-stakes testing began to dominate school reform and as critics accused the middle schools of inadequate attention to academics.
"Take a look at the 1960s and 1970s literature on middle schools," Arth urges board members. "See if the concepts don't make sense. If you go back and take a look at the original concept of middle schools, you'll see it's a good one."
Meanwhile, Juvonen says, school boards might want to look at how they can take advantage of the traditional middle school model, which can provide a much wider range of academic, athletic, and extracurricular activities for students.
And, she adds, if they're worried about the impersonal nature of their large schools, they should consider breaking them down into smaller learning environments -- just as some educators are advocating for high schools.
School boards that pay attention to the middle grades can make them better, whether they jump on the K-8 bandwagon or not, Kasak says.
Proof can be found by looking at the Schools to Watch program (www.schoolstowatch. org), which highlights successful middle schools following sound middle-grades practices.
"We know from the research that's been done over the last 10 years that schools that are low performing and in an urban setting -- when they follow the middle-grades practices and do them well -- see improvements," she says. "They see improvements in students' well-being. There are less adjustment issues. But, most important, they see improvements in the academic outcomes for students."