Is Middle School Bad For Kids?

A surprising number of other U.S. cities have come to the same conclusion, reversing the trend that created thousands of middle schools in the 1970s and '80s. Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minn.; Philadelphia; Memphis, Tenn.; and Baltimore, Md., are in various stages of reconfiguring their schools away from the middle school model and toward K-8s. Some suburban districts, including the wealthy Capistrano School District in Orange County, Calif., are also making the switch.

While issues such as crowding and cost cutting were factors for some of these districts, the change is driven largely by a series of studies that depict U.S. middle schools as the "Bermuda Triangle of education," as one report put it. It's the place where kids lose their way academically and socially--in many cases never to resurface. The most comprehensive report, a review of 20 years of educational research, was released last year by the Rand Corporation, the nonprofit research group in Santa Monica, Calif. Cheerfully titled Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American Middle School, it offered a harsh critique of the middle school record. Among its findings:

*More than half of eighth-graders fail to achieve expected levels of proficiency in reading, math and science on national tests.

*In international ratings of math achievement, U.S. students rank about average--ninth out of 17--at Grade 4, but sink to 12th place by Grade 8, setting the stage for further slippage in high school.

*Reported levels of emotional and physical problems are higher among U.S. middle school students than among their peers in all 11 other countries surveyed by the World Health Organization. The same "health behavior" survey found that U.S. middle schoolers have the most negative views of the climate of their schools and peer culture.

*Crime takes off in middle school. Statistics from 1996-97 show that while 45% of public elementary schools reported one or more incidents to the police, the figure jumps to 74% for middle schools--almost as high as high schools (77%).

*While not many studies directly compare K-8 schools with middle schools, those that do suggest that young teens do better both academically and socially in K-8 schools.

Most significant, the Rand report questioned the very idea of having separate schools for preteens: "Research suggests that the onset of puberty is an especially poor reason for beginning a new phase of schooling." Jaana Juvonen, the UCLA psychologist who spent more than 18 months crunching data for the report, believes that 11- and 12-year-olds are already dealing with so many changes that it makes little sense to pile on a change in schools. "Right around the time that most kids are transferring to middle school, everything starts to happen," she says. "There's physical development: you're starting to look different. And because of that, people's expectations of you are changing. In addition, there's cognitive development and new reasoning abilities. It is a very fragile period."