Too young for high school, too old for grade school: Still caught in the middle

Stories by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
Photos by Scott Buschman

Many schools today are playing a shell game of sorts, hoping that if they change the grouping of grade levels at school sites, they may improve academic achievement, raise test scores, improve behavior, save money, or offer students more choices.

Naturally, the biggest impact is in the middle grades. Schools have always found it hard to decide where, exactly, it's best to put students who are too young for high school and too old for elementary school. Making this decision even more difficult are the students themselves, who act as if they are grown-ups one minute and 4-year-olds the next.

Some districts in California are following a national trend and completely doing away with middle schools. Others are reducing the number of middle schools within a district, and offering students the choice of remaining in elementary school or going on to middle school.

It takes special teachers to work with middle-grade students. They must have the patience of a saint, the thickest of skins, a great sense of humor and a love for the illogical. They must help students make sense of their changing world, their changing bodies and algebra all at the same time.

For many of these brave teachers, it's heartrending to see middle schools being abandoned.

The following articles examine what's happening with school configuration in California, the impact it can have on teaching, learning and behavior, and whether middle school is an endangered concept.

Nearly 20 years ago, the California Department of Education (CDE) issued its landmark report, "Caught in the Middle," which proposed reforming junior high schools to help students feel "connected" to their school and challenged by rigorous curriculum. In response, middle schools, which until then were isolated experiments, came into their own.

For a short time thereafter, the middle grades got some attention. Since then, they have faded from the public eye, once again becoming the hazy area somewhere between elementary school and high school.

"We are still caught in the middle today," says Jim Rogers, a member of the California Middle School Alliance and chair of the Orange Service Center Council. "Since I've been on the alliance, I have realized there's not a lot of attention paid to middle schools — except by the people who are invested in them."

"Something is going on between fourth grade and high school. Mostly, it's called middle school," reads a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times. "Gains made in early years are slipping away after fourth grade. Yet middle schools have been all but ignored in most state, national and local reform efforts. … Elementary schools have received extra money for smaller class sizes; high schools are shifting to trendy 'smaller learning communities.' But middle school teachers are left to struggle."

Primary classrooms have eight fewer students per teacher than do middle-grade classrooms, says Dr. Jim Miller, a consultant for the CDE's Middle and High School Improvement Department. High school classrooms have about 4.4 fewer students. "This means that a typical middle-grade classroom can receive substantially fewer resources than either a primary classroom or a high school classroom."

"These kids are going through major growth and through puberty, which has major ups and downs of emotions," says Rogers, a social studies teacher at Imperial Middle School in La Habra. "It's a time in their lives when everything is a crisis. But when funding is not adequate, it's hard to meet their needs."

At his Title I school, for example, there are no counselors to work with the 1,200 students.

It's not easy to staff a middle school either. There is no specific credential for teaching middle school, and qualifications for teaching middle grades are nebulous. Those who teach a self-contained classroom for students in middle grades, for example, need a multi-subject credential, while those who teach a single subject need only a credential in that subject area. And those with a single-subject credential are often lured away by the high schools while middle schools scramble to fill slots.

Some in the alliance have suggested that future teachers should earn a special middle school credential that will better prepare them for working with this unique age group with its raging hormones.

"Taking Center Stage," the 2001 revision of "Caught in the Middle," emphasized the incorporation of standards-based instruction. A revised version, "Taking Center Stage II," is in the works. It will provide how-to content for implementing standards-based instruction. Middle school advocates are hoping it will also refocus the public's interest.

"Middle school is where we lose them," says CTA Board member Mikki Cichocki, a former middle school teacher in San Bernardino. "Middle school really affects what happens in high school. Those years between 11 and 14 are so crucial. Students are trying to figure out who they are. Weird things are happening to their bodies and minds. And the schools have gotten far away from doing what is right for these kids developmentally. Everything is predicated on test results and some kind of outcome for high school instead of what is appropriate for these students in middle school."

In the past, middle schools were viewed as a place for students to explore their interests through electives, find out what they're talented in and get a chance to shine. "Middle school is a time when children are supposed to be exploring what's out there in the world," says CTA Board member Paula Caplinger, a music teacher at Will C. Wood Middle School in Sacramento. "But middle schools everywhere are losing electives because of the No Child Left Behind law."

In the effort to raise test scores and cut corners financially, electives have gone by the wayside. Along with feeling disconnected, students have less enthusiasm for school, say teachers. And that attitude often carries over into high school.

Caplinger finds it unfortunate that many of the reforms suggested in the first "Caught in the Middle" report were never put into place. Rather than trying to help middle schools, some districts are finding it easier to reconfigure them.

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Small school settings that once offered attention for adolescents and helped them feel secure are now "megaschools" where students may feel lost and overwhelmed. In Caplinger's school, they have tried to assign a team of "core teachers" to the same group of students for two consecutive years. "But we have found that it doesn't always work because of class size, the layout of the plant, plus the headaches that NCLB has caused our school."

Middle-grade students are very fragile, have changeable moods and "huge growing pains," says Caplinger. In the process of trying to find themselves, they desperately need a support system. "But we've lost our school counselors, psychologists, nurses and librarians."

At her school, which has close to 1,000 students, the number of counselors has gone from four to one over the years, and the lone remaining counselor mostly does scheduling.

Middle schools have suffered considerable criticism. A 2004 Fordham Institute report, "Mayhem in the Middle: How Middle Schools Have Failed America — and How to Make Them Work," garnered attention with its conclusion: "Middle schoolism is based on pseudo-scientific theories and downplays academic achievement."

It theorized that "middle schools are where academic achievement goes to die."

The case study was written by Cheri Pierson Yecke, now the top official of Florida's education department. According to the Miami Herald, she is a "conservative, a believer in creationism, a critic of teachers unions and a strong proponent of President Bush's education reform program — some of which she helped write."

Despite her obvious conservative bias, the report caused quite a stir, says CDE consultant Jim Miller. Even though the study is not research-based, it - along with "The Wonder Years" - is often cited by California district administrators as evidence of the need for reconfiguring middle schools.

"The Wonder Years," released in 2004 by the RAND Corp., showed that 70 percent of the nation's eighth-graders were not proficient in reading, math and science on national achievement tests. "This is particularly true for African Americans and Latinos, who continue to lag behind their white peers, even when their parents have attained similar levels of education," noted the report. It added that the achievement gap is narrowing.

"If I were king of the world, I would have federal support for the middle grades," says Rich Foley, the chair of the Middle School Alliance. "I would have a middle school credential and professional development for middle school educators to give them more support. I would have a state public relations campaign about the importance of the middle grades, because that's when we lose them. High school is too late.

"There is a lot of talk about kids not passing the High School Exit Exam, but these problems don't start in high school," he says. "We have to pump money and resources into the middle grades to make sure students get intervention and support early."

"The biggest problem with middle schools is the failure of people to recognize that middle school is different from other grade levels," says California Schools to Watch program director Irvin Howard at the CDE. The program highlights outstanding middle schools.

Howard, a professor at CSU-San Bernardino and a member of the California Faculty Association, would like to see colleges of education teach "best practices" that work especially well with the 11-14 age group. "Instruction has to be different to meet their needs. What works with elementary school kids and high school kids doesn't work with these kids."

"California is making some good headway in middle school education, but we need to do more," he says. "We need to make sure every middle school student has an adult advocate — an adviser or a counselor — and that large schools are broken into smaller learning communities. We need to have middle schools offer students quality electives and exploratory options."

Howard is hoping that people will look at the "Schools to Watch" page on the CDE website and see that there are plenty of good middle schools - and that middle schools are definitely worth investing in.

"I have plenty of reason to be optimistic."