Grade-Level Configuration and the Connection to Transitions
In California, there are many middle grades configurations, although the sixth-through-eighth combination is most common (in 2006, 65 percent of the schools serving middle grades students were grade six through eight combinations1). Other common configurations include grades 7-8, 7-9, 6-9, 5-8, and K-8.
In recent years, debate has raged over which type of middle school configuration is most effective in serving young adolescents. Proponents of kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools (K-8) cite the value of more nurturing elementary school settings. Middle school proponents cite the value of specialized subject-matter teaching, electives, and more advanced facilities for sciences, sports, and academic rigor.
In his article, “Pickle in the Middle,” Professor Beane refocuses on the essence of the middle school philosophy.
For the record, just what is this middle school concept? Most middle level educators refer to two sources for a definition: the Carnegie Council’s 1989 report, Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century, and the National Middle School Association’s policy statement, This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents, most recently revised in 2003. These two statements offer a set of guidelines and priorities for high-quality middle-level schools, including improved academic achievement for all students, a challenging and engaging curriculum, supportive and safe environments, better teacher preparation, and improved relationships with families and communities. And, for the record, both recognize that schools for young adolescents can be found inside a variety of grade configurations including 6-8, 5-8, 7-8, K-8, 7-12, K-12, and more.2
The RAND Corporation’s report, Focus on the Wonder Years (PDF; Outside Source), was one of the publications that examined how schools address the middle-grade configuration. Like others, RAND criticized middle schools because the configuration moves students from a K-5 elementary to a 6-8 middle and then on to a 9-12 high school. Research indicates that student performance suffers after transitions; therefore, RAND and others suggested that a K-8 or 7-12 system might be better because those structures reduce the number of student transitions.
Recent criticisms of middle schools as an institution tend to focus on poor practices carried out in individual middle schools. “While a move to K-8 schools may eliminate the harmful effect of transitioning between schools, three additional factors can affect student learning: school size, student SES, and instructional delivery. There is evidence that smaller schools and fewer transitions are good for students, but so is the middle school concept of organizing and delivering developmentally-appropriate programs for young adolescents. However, only the negative effect of the number of times a student transitions from one school to the next is solved by a move to K-8 schools.”3 Other variables contribute to the success or failure of schools, such as school size, socioeconomic challenges, and how the middle grades are organized to deliver instruction. Poorly orchestrated transitions from one school to another can be traumatic and negatively affect student learning. However, moving from a small intimate environment to a large impersonal environment has more to do with the environment than the transition between the two. The best transition plans or instructional models take young adolescent needs into account.
The reports criticizing middle schools underscore the need for middle grades professionals to make every effort to ensure that they work closely with both elementary and secondary peers to ensure that students do not experience educational mismatches and relational trauma as they move from one grade level to the next.
The difficulties experienced in middle school are remarkably similar to those students encounter in other schooling configurations. Those difficulties have come to be seen as a problem with middle schools in large part because of research that has found middle school effects in the absence of comparisons with student outcomes in other types of schooling for the middle grades.4
Paul George, professor at University of Florida and author of The Exemplary Middle School, worries that young adolescents may be slighted in the headlong rush to K-8 schools. He argues that students in grades six, seven, and eight “need well-trained teachers, cohesive learning communities, mentoring programs, and a rich and rigorous curriculum focused on their interests and needs.”5 Such resources are not always available in K-8 schools.
For example, sixth graders in a middle school environment have access to electives they would not have in the majority of elementary school settings. In some K-8 schools, music is a pullout program, which means students miss their regular classes to go to music and have to make up what they missed. "It adds more work for the kids and teachers that way. But in a middle school situation, music is an elective, so they don't have to miss out on anything."6
The September 2005 issue of the Middle School Journal focused on the following question: “K-8 Settings or Separate Schools: Is There a Best Way to Educate Young Adolescents?” (Outside Source), In that issue, Vincent Anfara, Jr., and Alison Buehler review the research evidence against middle schools and find that it is sparse and rarely takes into account whether grades 6-8 schools are faithfully implementing the basic tenets of effective middle schools. They suggest that a district answer the following questions before abandoning middle schools:
- Will the grade configuration increase or decrease parental involvement?
- How many students will be at each grade level, and what implications will this have for course offerings and instructional grouping?
- How will the presence or absence of older students affect younger students?
- What are the opportunities for interaction between age groups?
- Is the design of the school building suited to this grade configuration?
- What is the cost and length of student travel?
- How will grade configuration affect the continuity and articulation of the curriculum?7
Researchers found that when schools faithfully implement middle school philosophy, the advantages between one grade configuration over another disappear.8 In short, a high-impact middle grades program—regardless of school configuration—will respond to the developmental needs of adolescents through caring relationships, high expectations and support to reach them, enrichment and exploratory options, and socially relevant learning opportunities. In developmentally responsive middle schools, educators go out of their way to help students handle new pressures, including new perceptions of gender, changing roles in their communities, and the conflicting messages they receive through popular culture. Successful middle grades educators make sure students feel that they belong.9
For a series of articles about grade configuration, go to the Turning Points Web page on “News from Turning Points.” Scroll halfway down the page to the section on The Middle School Debate (Outside Source.)
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Moving at-risk youths into the middle school setting
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Conclusion
Footnotes
1Fact Book 2006: Handbook of Education Information, Sacramento: California Department of Education, 2006, 20.
2James A. Beane, “Pickle in the Middle,” California English, California Association of Teachers of English (September 2006).
3Tom Erb, “The Making of a New Urban Myth,” Middle School Journal, Vol. 37, No.1 (September 2005), 2-3.
4Christopher C. Weiss and Lindsay Kipnes, “Reexamining Middle School Effects: A Comparison of Middle Grades Students in Middle Schools and K-8 Schools” (Outside Source) American Journal of Education, Vol. 112 (February 2006).
5Paul George, “K-8 or Not? Reconfiguring the Middle Grades” (Outside Source), Middle School Journal, Vol. 37, No.1 (September 2005), 6-13.
6“Eureka School Delays Onset of 'Teen Attitude,'” California Educator, Vol. 10, Issue 6 (March 2006).
7Vincent Anfara, Jr., and Allison Buehler, “Grade Configuration and the Education of Young ... What Research Says,” Middle School Journal, Vol. 37, No. 1 (September 2005).
8V. Anfara, and R. Lipka. “Relating the Middle School Concept to School Achievement,” Middle School Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1, (2003) 24-32.
9Rick Wormeli, “Misleading in the Middle: A Rebuttal to Cheri Pierson Yecke” (Outside Source), Educational Leadership online, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Vol. 63 (Summer 2006).
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