Middle-school model yanks supports kids need

Middle school proponents protested when I wrote a column a few years ago that said: “Every 5-year-old enters the classroom excited about learning. By eighth grade, that enthusiasm has just about disappeared. Middle school in Georgia becomes the Bermuda Triangle of education.”

They argued that the middle school model can succeed as long as it’s faithfully followed. Take another look at middle schools, they asked. Visit some good ones.

I’ve done that, and I still think the concept is flawed.

Yes, some middle schools are effective. But there aren’t enough.

Last month, I went to a presentation on middle schools at which the speakers maintained the solution was more money. I think the solution may be a different model.

We blame low student achievement in middle schools on raging adolescent hormones without considering whether the problem could be the basic structure.

Even in good middle schools, too much energy goes into containing students rather than teaching them.

When children leave cozy neighborhood elementary schools for sprawling middle schools, it’s often like going from a hayride to a prison bus. Parents half expected to be frisked when they’re buzzed into the building.

I admit to a bias. I attended a k-8 school where I shared the hallways with younger and older classmates, and never thought twice about it.

My transition from fifth to sixth grade was uneventful; I just walked across the hall. No one expected boys and girls to run amok just because the acne kicked in.

Somehow, we’ve decided that children ages 12 to 14 ought to be penned up together in settings largely defined by rules, a conclusion not shared by many countries with enviable education systems.

If we believe that adolescents are addled by their hormones, does it make sense to further frazzle them by marching them off to bigger, more impersonal schools?

Most middle schools are far too large, causing adolescents to become anonymous just when they need someone to notice them.

In Georgia, we herd 838 students —- the average middle school enrollment in the state —- into one building, bolt the front door and pray for the best.

And the best isn’t great.

This year, about 38 percent of eighth-graders failed the state math exam. After 70 percent to 80 percent of seventh- and eighth-graders failed the state social studies test, the state Department of Education tossed the results.

In national testing in 2006-07, only 25 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient or higher in math, while 26 percent did so in reading, according to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.

As a director of Clemson’s Institute on Family and Neighbor Life, Gary Melton says the k-8 model fosters parental engagement, an important factor in student achievement. “In education, any transition is a disruption,” he says. But the disruption from elementary to middle school goes beyond students to parents.

When people talk about their “community” school, they typically mean an elementary school, says Melton. People don’t develop a similar bond with their child’s middle school. Nor do the schools necessarily encourage it.

Melton says research shows that parental involvement is largely within a school’s control. “While the characteristic of the parents makes a little bit of difference,” he says, “it’s not nearly as important as the level of belief that teachers have in whether parents can make a contribution to their children’s education.”

Because middle-school teachers instruct as many as 150 students a day, they’re less connected to them.

As adolescents detach from their school, so do their parents. You end up with a place that feels less like a part of the community and more like a bus station —- and with students who feel as if they’re simply passing through.

Learning Curve is a weekly column on education. Please send suggestions for topics or feedback to mdowney@ajc.com.