The K-8 Bandwagon
A few years ago reformers in a number of big American cities began calling for a return to the K-8 school. Such schools were once the norm in many rural and urban communities. But in the middle of the 20th century they began to be replaced by junior high schools, and later in many places by middle schools.
But K-8 schools continued to exist in many rural communities, where the financial and educational practicality of keeping more kids under one roof sometimes managed to trump ideological ascendancy. A few neighborhoods in some cities held on to the K-8 school as well.
As the battle between middle school and junior high advocates heated up, researchers began to look at the school structures (read here grade configurations) in which middle grade kids did best. What tended to come up in such investigations was that middle grade kids in K-8 schools were better off academically and socially than their peers in pre-teen-only schools—whether organized under the middle school “concept” or as junior highs.
Many rural educators weren’t surprised at the rationales for the better performance of young adolescents in K-8 schools: more academic continuity, more personal attention from teachers and other adults in the school who were better able to know the child over a longer period of time, generally smaller schools, less clique-ishness and social pressure, fewer disruptive transitions, and greater parental involvement.
Research on K-8 schools began to rise to the attention of reformers in a number of large urban systems who were concerned about the performance of middle schools and their students. In Baltimore, the city noted that 54% of sixth graders in its existing K-8 schools passed the state reading test, compared to only 36% in “traditional” middle schools.
It wasn’t long before a number of big cities—including New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Baltimore—were re-organizing at least some of their middle grade schools into K-8s.
And so the urban bandwagon of creating K-8 schools was out of the gate. Meanwhile, the closure of K-8 schools in rural areas seems to have continued apace.
Now, as happens in the dust of bandwagons, there’s concern. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, many parents in that city charge that the new K-8 schools aren’t getting the funding and equipment they were promised and don’t get as much per pupil funding for their middle grade students as do the middle schools.
The Baltimore Sun also reports on a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University says that new K-8 schools in Philadelphia haven’t contributed to improved student learning there (although student achievement went up similarly overall in K-8 and middle schools). The report does not appear to be available at this time on the web, but it apparently calls for less attention to school structure and more attention to curriculum, high quality teachers, and meeting the needs of young adolescents.
Newspapers in a number of cities have picked up the article, so don’t be surprised if a “K-8’s don’t work” bandwagon starts rolling through your state.
What is pretty clear is that school structure does matter. See the education researcher Craig Howley’s interesting papers about grade configuration at his website by linking here and here.
The thing is that different communities need different structures. And rural communities—where distances are large and populations small—tend to need school structures that accommodate a wide range of grades. Indeed, many rural schools thrive as K-12 or preK-12—in one building, with middle grade kids thriving right along with everyone else.
K-12 public schools are extremely rare in urban areas. But there are signs that urban areas may be finding success with other grade configurations for middle grade kids. In New York City, some schools are doing well as K-8s while others are doing well as 6-12s. See this article in Sarasota's Herald Tribute for more information. Schools that are organized as 6-12s and 7-12s are also common in many rural areas.
One of the problems with bandwagon solutions is they tend to apply a single idea as a simple solution to a complex problem. Then when it doesn’t quite pan out, the whole approach is likely to be thrown out. This phenomenon could become a problem for K-8 schools.
In middle grades, of course, we need good teachers, strong curriculum, responsive programs, high expectations, parental involvement. The same things that are needed at every grade of schooling.
The question is how to insure these essential components are available to students no matter where they live. Resolving that question requires genuine involvement of parents and community residents, school boards who are close to the communities whose schools they govern, and the teachers and students who are affected by the decisions.
And that kind of involvement is much more likely to be knocked over by a runaway wagon than picked up by one.