It comes as no surprise to parents that the middle school years are academically crucial, preparing students for success in high school and the last, best chance to help struggling students catch up. However, the middle school years (generally grades 6 through 8) are also the time when many students lose ground. Clearly, the stakes are high for students and their families – getting an excellent education in middle school is more important than ever.
What makes an excellent middle school? In 2010, researchers at EdSource, a California-based education think tank, published a study of over 300 California public and charter schools offering programs to over 200,000 middle grades students, interviewing principals, teachers, and high-level administrators to survey them about their practices. The findings from those interviews were cross-referenced with student achievement on the California Standards Test in English/Language Arts and Math. The results? The study's authors were able to identify numerous practices and strategies that were strongly connected to increased student achievement.
These high-impact practices and strategies were common to high-performing middle schools.
Focusing intently on improving achievement for all students
This focus includes things like setting measurable goals for student outcomes, and adults being held accountable (and taking responsibility) if their students fail to meet those measurable goals. (Interestingly, only about half of Superintendents interviewed said they were evaluated to a significant extent on middle school student performance or high school readiness). Researchers also found that expecting students and parents to share the responsibility for student learning was a characteristic of high-performing middle schools.
Closely aligning curriculum and instruction with state academic standardsPrincipals expect teachers to use the school's adopted curriculum daily, and teachers report frequent collaboration on curriculum pacing, common benchmarks and assessments.
Extensively using assessment and other student data
School districts should play a strong leadership role in making sure middle schools (and all schools!) get timely and adequate access to student data; that access must include good tools for analyzing student assessment data and training on how to use those tools. Principals should personally use assessment data extensively in order to identify students who need extra intervention and support, teachers who might need additional professional development, and areas where instruction in the school as a whole must improve.
Emphasizing early identification and proactive intervention for students' academic needs
Records of entering students should be carefully and comprehensively reviewed to identify the needs of English Learner students, special education students, and students with other special academic needs. Before referring students to special education, the school should have a comprehensive range of voluntary strategies to help struggling students catch up.
Strong, supportive leadership from the Superintendent and school district
If the district functions well across many measures, researchers said, middle schools were more likely to perform well.
Principal leadership
The study found that effective middle school principals regularly communicate high expectations for student achievement and hold teachers accountable for student achievement; these principals also report that they, themselves are held accountable by district leadership for student achievement at their schools.
Additionally, the study found that effective middle school principals ensure that teachers have common planning time, and meet with teachers individually to go over test and benchmark assessment results. Finally, teachers at high-performing middle schools overwhelmingly reported that their principals understand and acknowledge effective teaching, ensure that they receive valuable professional development, and arrange for performance evaluations that are substantive and meaningful.
Teacher training
Principals in high-performing middle schools were far more likely to report that their teachers should have strong subject area knowledge, be able to use student assessment data to improve learning, enjoy teaching at the middle-school level, and be able to effectively collaborate with peers.
School climate
Clean, safe and disciplined environments make a difference in student learning, teachers and principals say. What makes a safe and disciplined environment? Principals (and teachers) endorsed dress codes, zero tolerance for drugs, weapons or bullying, adult supervision during lunch and passing periods, and incentives (dances, parties or other special events) to reward students for good behavior. More suprising, but no less important, was the finding that principals strongly endorse extracurricular activities and electives as offerings that contribute to a positive school environment.
It's also very interesting to see what practices, strategies and characteristics seemed to have no impact on school success. Here are two of the most surprising.
Grade configuration
In many communities, parents and educators believe that the K-8 grade configuration is better developmentally for students, because it keeps them in a smaller, more supportive and familiar environment until the turbulent middle school years are past. However, the study did not find evidence to support the idea that students do better in K-8 schools, or that they do worse in schools with middle grade configurations.
Student characteristics
Schools with a majority of low-income students or students of color were, for the most part, as likely to be high-performing as those serving more advantaged students – if they employed the high-impact practices and strategies identified in the study.
References:
"Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: A Large Scale Study of Middle Grades Practices and Student Outcomes" EdSource, February 2010. Accessed January 24, 2011.
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