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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2010 > July > 12 > Entry
Dumping K-8 schools bucks a trend (and not in a good way)
In today’s paper, Margo Rutledge Kissell writes that Dayton Public Schools is moving toward 7-12 high schools with K-6 elementary schools. The editorial page also weighed in on this issue, cautioning Superintendent Lori Ward not to get distracted by issues that won’t have a deep impact on academics.
The core question for those who want the district to improve should always be the same — will this help kids learn better? Unfortunately, the evidence says the answer to that question is most likely “no” when it comes to moving away from K-8 schools.
Let’s start with a quick history lesson.
Shortly after the Gail Littlejohn-led Kids First team took over the city school board in 2001 and passed a school construction bond issue in 2002, the board announced it was going to dump middle schools in favor of K-8 elementary schools. Littlejohn and others theorized 7th and 8th graders would benefit by being grouped in smaller numbers across the elementary schools. It would give the kids a chance to to be role models, by serving as “upperclassmen” and allow them to get more individual attention.
Littlejohn was adamant at the time that the research showed K-8 was a benefit to middle school age kids. After some research, I was skeptical. There were some studies back then showing mild gains for middle school kids in K-8s, but the gains weren’t dramatic. The research didn’t seem like enough of a slam dunk to assure K-8 was better.
But there was no arguing this point — the district’s middle schools were terrible. In 2000 I had spent a full day shadowing an honor student at the now-closed MacFarlane Middle School and came away stunned by the level of chaos and the lack of learning going on. If K-8 got the kids out of that environment it could only be good.
But the K-8 experiment hasn’t been completely smooth. It has brought more challenging discipline issues to elementary schools. Certification problems abound, as some elementary school teachers don’t have the right background to teach middle school content. For kids ready for advanced, high school level work, it was sometimes hard for them to get it in an elementary school. These factors, along with some construction advantages of grouping kids by 7-12, are driving the district away from K-8.
But will 7-12 schools help kids achieve better? One of the top middle school experts in the country says K-8 is a better bet.
David Hough is a researcher at Missouri State University who initially set out to prove middle schools were the best place for kids age 10-14.
“Much to my surprise, they were not,” he said.
Hough now is managing editor of the Middle Grades Research Journal and since 2004 has carefully tracked data from across the country on how kids in that age range perform on academics, discipline and attendance in various grade configurations. Over the past 10 years, study after study has found only small differences in student performance, but the differences that do exist all favor K-8 schools.
“Kids are attending at higher rates, fewer behavior referrals and achieving higher in K-8 more than any other,” he said. “That research has been consistent since 1991. Nearly every study you will find, and there’s been about a half dozen good ones since 2006 with different methods, say the same.”
Those findings have helped persuade several districts, like Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City, to move toward the K-8 model.
Hough has several theories about why K-8 is better. Generally, he said, elementary school teachers tend to take a more “nurturing” instructional approach that is student-focused. At older grades, teachers tend to be content specialists who expect students to work more independently. Middle grade kids, Hough believes, still need a more nurturing approach.
Also, parent involvement in schools dramatically drops off when kids move beyond elementary school. Parents of middle grade kids stay involved longer when their kids stay in elementary schools, Hough said the research shows clearly. This benefits the kids when it comes to the attendance, behavior and academics.
DPS should be looking at this data. Instead, chief academic officer Jane McGee-Rafal was quoted in the story saying she can find research “that supports almost anything.” That dismissive attitude won’t help. If she doesn’t know Hough’s work she hasn’t done her homework.
NOTE: A typo in David Hough’s comment was corrected after this was initially posted.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By Scott Elliott
July 19, 2010 12:27 PM | Link to this
Sorry about the typo in the Hough quote. I fixed it. Thanks for the heads up.
By Doug
July 19, 2010 10:14 AM | Link to this
Quote from the reporter’s writing: “David Hough is a researcher at Missouri State University who initially set out to prove middle schools were the best place for kids age 10-14. “Much to my surprise, there were not,” he said.” I don’t know if this is poor editing, an oversight, or the reporter’s use of a quote that is not exactly relevant to the previous passage. In any case, this possible grammatical mistake makes me wonder just what the heck the guy is saying. Can someone clarify? Is he saying “there” were not any schools that could prove his point? Is he saying “they were” not? Thanks.
By Joe Lacey
July 14, 2010 9:17 AM | Link to this
The new elementary buildings work fine as PreK-6 buildings. Ms. Moore, I understand your concerns but there have also been concerns about putting inner-city teen-agers in the same buildings with smaller children.
By Hey
July 14, 2010 12:16 AM | Link to this
It’s all a joke! Let’s build new buildings for k-8, no wait a minute, let’s separate them with the high school, no let’s do like Stivers.You have to apply to get into Stivers and they discipline. There is no putting up with acting out. One strike and you’re out. Those kids want to learn. Just using that and applying it to other high schools isn’t going to work. Those kids don’t want to learn. There is no qualifications to get in, just let’s see what happens. Discipline should come first and parent involvement. Otherwise, it will fail. Quit changing it up every 10 minutes and give something a chance….but first comes discipline.
By Worried parent
July 13, 2010 6:03 PM | Link to this
I think the district should look very long at what making this change may do to enrollment and the dollars that go with it. I have a sense that a lot of parents will opt to pull their kids out of DPS instead of rolling the dice. For the sake of Dayton, I hope the Board studies this long and hard and LISTENS to what parents have to say. I can’t say this loud or long enough: going to 7-12 schools across the city would be A BIG MISTAKE!
By Julie
July 13, 2010 12:06 PM | Link to this
Now all these newly built Pre K-8 school buildings will be too big. What will DPS do???? Tear them down and build smaller schools? (that sounds like something DPS would do!)
By Jim Anderson
July 13, 2010 11:53 AM | Link to this
The only important line in that story is the one that referenced parental involvement. Without that, it doesn’t matter what school you attend or what grades you are grouped with.
By Anne Moore
July 13, 2010 10:48 AM | Link to this
I attended a 7-12 school, but it was in a VERY SMALL TOWN. It was scary then being a 7th grader pushed into a sea of older, much older kids. I can’t imagine how scary it would be in a large city like Dayton. Kids that are 12 years old do NOT belong grouped with 16-18 year olds…..way too much peer pressure, too much bullying, this is a STUPID MISTAKE by DPS. 7th and 8th graders are more like elementary school kids than high school kids. I pray for all of these middle school aged children. I am also thinking that normal people need to run for school boards, people with school age kids need to be on the boards, they are closer to the situation. I am so disgusted by this move. Glad I moved out of Dayton proper only because of the schools.
By Stivers model
July 13, 2010 10:03 AM | Link to this
I am always skeptical of anyone who invokes Stivers as a good model for all of DPS. Stivers is a fine school, but it has certain advantages the rest of DPS does not share: 1. students must try out to get in. 2. They don’t have to take everyone. 3. They can boot out behavior problems (and use the threat to improve discipline). This WILL NOT WORK across the district. I like OldProf’s suggestion of achievement-based classes, (which is somewhat akin to DECA’s approach), but that would require a sea-change that the community is not prepared to support. Instead, I believe DPS should have a variety of options for middle grade students: some 7-12 HS, some MS and some K-8. If one thing bothers me more than hearing about the “Stivers Model”, it’s “one size fits all” education.
By Joe Lacey
July 13, 2010 9:36 AM | Link to this
As you describe it, Mr. Hough’s research compares K-8’s to middle schools. We’re going to 7-12 schools, not middle schools. The two have many differences. Anyway, if Mr. Hough’s studies are so groundbreaking, why are they so difficult to find online. Do you have a link to them? Are they all buried in his Missouri State journal?
By School Supporter
July 13, 2010 3:34 AM | Link to this
“Hough now is managing editor of the Middle Grades Research Journal” Would his credibility be enhanced if he were editor of the “Journal of Unwarranted Experimentation on Involuntary Adolescent Subjects?” Why or why not—at least the latter better characterizes the nature of much of ed research (which often does not require and Institutional Review Board to safeguard the experimental subjects). While “dismissive” isn’t good, ed publications aren’t a match for what we see going on in the 7-12 high schools—think Stivers. They ensure kids are ready for success in 9th grade by starting remediation two years earlier.
By Stan
July 12, 2010 9:51 PM | Link to this
If we can get past all the double talk and mumbo jumbo. It is amazing how these schools continue to ignore the real tried true and psychologically proven methods and infer to minutiae for the sake of trying something new. (It�s new, groundbreaking, blah blah) Children of certain age groups are mentally more compatible. No there is not a blanket across the board statement for this concept, but if educators would accept their own training of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they would accept models based on 1-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Why? Not because of intelligence relationships, but because of mental compatibility. Children of these age groups just gel better together. Kids in the 6th grade are too mature to be around kids in first or second grade. Likewise 9th graders benefit by the maturity of kids in the grade levels above them. Pre through kindergarten would be a welcome experiment in Montgomery County where the pre kindergarten achievement scores are lowest in the state. Kindergarten children do not benefit by having 6th graders on the same campus/playground. They are not ready for that level. Most elementary schools group them together, but then tend to hide and separate them to one end of the building, which I guess works. But why not work on supplementing these very impressionable minds by grouping them with younger learners making them the teachers of their skill level. Again by educators own trainings isn�t this when higher level of learning is achieved? When the learner begins to teach. Of course that makes too much sense and we wouldn�t get grants and special funding to try these other stupid ideas. We would just be educating students to the maximum of their potential.
By Oldprof
July 12, 2010 2:54 PM | Link to this
Scott, wouldn’t a good reporter ASK her if she’s read any of Hough’s work before speculating? I expect she’ll take your call. Meanwhile, given your experience, don’t you know that she’s right? Education research is generally weak and you pretty much can find support for just about anything. If you want alternative models, look at Deer Park schools near Cincinnati—their students are split into K-3, 4-6, and their HS is like Belmont will be, with middle school in the same building but separate. Even better: go non-graded and place students based on achievement rather than age.
By Max
July 12, 2010 1:16 PM | Link to this
Scott, earlier today, in response to Margo’s piece, I essentially said the same thing. Data-based decisions on either side of the question tend to only support one position. The danger here is for DPS - Ms. Ward - to use education’s structure as a social tool apart from the district’s mission. I do think it is a pragmatic move on Ms. Ward’s part due, mainly, for the disciplinary/education reasons you note. This ‘re-grading’ though is, as I wrote earlier, a retro-fit of an education system still working under a 19th Century model. Ms. Ward’s decision may be a positive start for now. I say let’s give her a chance.