NYT Middle School Article

The New York Times article "Taking Middle Schoolers Out of the Middle," which focused on the Middle School scenario, presented a variety of solutions to deal with the issues that come with middle schools across the country. The article doesn't so much present problems that middle schools come with. Instead it talks about many areas around the country that have closed their middle school and opted for a different environment for the 6-8 kids. There are several sides of the issue. Many argue for the K-8 level schools, another group presents points for a 6-12 grade level school, the third group argues that there are real problems in these classrooms and that these issues are just being masked by moving kids out of these middle school settings.

The K-8th side as well as the 6-12 side both argue that there are advantages and disadvantages to having the middle schoolers included. One of the main concerns for both groups was mixing older and younger students together with such a large age difference, and emotional development. The K-8 group argued that the there one advantage might be that students have the emotional connection to these same teachers they have been with. Middle school is without a doubt a critical age for students. They go through so much, emotionally and physically, in the span of 3 years and if they were in a setting with adults that they know already they would have additional emotional support. The 6-12 group argues that the additional time in high school would encourage academic success.

Others insist that the issue of breaking down schools is instead masking the problems of large classes, not enough teacher, and not enough attention for students. The time, money and effort spent on moving students to these other schools could be spent improving middle schools and helping students.

There is little statistical data presented in the article. What little data provided, from Philadelphia, shows that while Philadelphia K-8 schools out-preformed traditional middle schools, "those schools had fewer poor and minority students and more experienced teachers" (Gootman, 1). The movement across the country to change the middle school experience is a new one so data in the next few years will be interesting to study. The immediate advantages though that many people argue for are the emotional support that can be available for students at the K-8 level, or the academic support that can happen at a 6-12 level.

For Maine another issue is that this movement to create the K-8 or 6-12 schools are starting, as most movements do, in urban areas. There doesn’t seem to be much data to present to make this appeal on the rural landscape. There is not evidence presented in this one article that the Maine system is in as much need as for a change or how the change would be implemented.
In Maine there are several areas where there are many towns that come together to form a middle or high schools. In SAD 75 the middle and high school are composed of four towns, with six elementary schools. The method used to help relieve the stress of transition to middle school is to break up all the incoming sixth graders into three “houses” and for the three years you will be in a house with the same kids. In high school, the three houses come together to form a freshmen class of around 230 kids. Up until about 7 years ago, before a new middle school was built, there wasn’t the room to house the sixth graders in the middle school. The sixth graders instead stayed at the elementary schools and then made the transition to the middle school as a seventh grader. For a sixth grader to stay at an elementary school seems to be a more logical choice for a district like SAD 75 and other districts in Maine. That extra year in elementary school might prove helpful for the emotional development of the students. It also solves some of the problems mentioned the article about the difference in ages of the student in a k-8 or a 6-12 environment.

Another plague of many middle schools, at least for SAD 75, is that people are worried about the feelings of students at that age. Though it is a critical age, it seems that many adults are afraid to really challenge students for fear that they wont feel satisfied unless they succeed. So instead of challenging the students they set up these steps that with any effort students can succeed. It doesn’t challenge them it makes it so they feel better about themselves. We need to make it so that students learn to work hard, be proud of their work, and feel the satisfaction of receiving a grade that they deserve. It is essential student are challenged in middle schools if they are to preform well in high school.

While there might be valuable reason to move middle aged students to a different environment it seems that there might be many kinks in systems in the rural areas which need to be worked out. Also statistics should be presented showing an overwhelming improvement of students in these new environment before Maine starts thinking about it.

Several years back New York City and Boston tried to break down their larger schools into small schools. Essentially they would use the same facilities except designate floors as different schools so as to create smaller environments. While initial result favored this method, more recent data has sense demonstrated that the smalls schools failed to improve student success. Boston and New York spent millions of dollars making these smalls schools just to have them not succeed. Several Maine Schools jumped on the bandwagon and floated with the idea, to various degrees, of creating small schools in their school systems. MSAD 75 attempted to implement this method but it failed to be approved by the School Board. School systems need to insure that before Maine schools decide to change the makeup of their middle schools that there is clear data that demonstrates that students improve in the K-8 or 6-12 schools then the traditional middle school style.