Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog largely endorsed research showing middle schools just aren’t working, and districts would be wiser returning to k-8 schools or traditional junior highs. Here is a sampling of comments:
Bonnie: I have a grandson who is now in sixth grade, having gone from elementary to middle school this year. Excuse my comment, but middle school in my town is the pits. There is no communication between parents and the school, and they want the kids to be responsible but treat them like they are in kindergarten. I think k-8 is much better for the transition to high school.
John: The model doesn't really matter; that's a matter of style over substance. The substance is how the students are treated by administrators and teachers. Are they informed regarding what is expected of them? Are they treated with respect and affection, with encouragement and reinforcement, with understanding and courtesy, and granted some autonomy over their lives with the intent of helping them achieve during what can be the difficult transition from child to adolescent? Or are they highly monitored and controlled by authoritarian figures who impose rules without input from students and impose them inconsistently?
Matt: Burn middle school to the ground. No one wants to be there. It's a misery for everyone involved. I am for anything that involves getting rid of it. Getting rid of an extra layer of administration and the extra buses needed for the schools is a bonus.
DeKalb Grad: At age 12, boys should go to a military school, and girls should go to a convent. I taught middle school after teaching in high school. It was Hormonal Hell. The problem is the curriculum. They "dumb down" the subject matter, treating their brains like elementary school students when they are capable of more. Parents abandon middle school, thinking their job is done once they no longer have to hold their children's hands when they cross the street. Drugs, sex and alcohol are the main downfall of middle-school students as they try to look grown-up. Parents need to be there watching and supporting teachers.
Babs: I am wondering if middle schools were designed because neither elementary schools nor high schools could handle that adolescent age group. My older daughter went to one and was bullied. The administration handled it exactly the way they should not have, and as a result, my daughter never liked school until she went to college. We put our younger one into a private k-6 grade school, with grades 7-8 as middle school, then onto high school. It seemed to work out much better. Obviously, I'm only comparing a sample size of two, and it's apples to oranges. But we liked the k-6 experience far better
Ray: Studies say k-8 would work better educationally and developmentally. It would be a continuation of the positive k-5 or k-6 experience most kids experience. I wouldn't be that worried about 14-year-old eighth graders and kindergartners on the same campus. I think it would actually help make the hormone-driven seventh and eighth graders more mellow and better behaved.
