http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/464
"Schools with many grade levels will have more
opportunities for cross-age activities such as older students helping out in
younger students’ classrooms and participating in tutoring activities. Schools
with big grade spans may be able to sustain more parent involvement in the
upper grades than is typical in middle or high schools. On the other hand,
because schools with very wide grade spans usually have fewer students and
classrooms per grade, there may be fewer opportunities for elective or
exploratory courses. In addition, fewer classrooms per grade means fewer
opportunities to match students to teachers according to learning and teaching
styles, to place students with others with whom they work well, or to separate
students who don’t get along. Opportunities for teacher collaboration or
mentoring at a specific grade level are also reduced.
One-and two-grade schools present the challenge of how to
preserve a sense of continuity and stability when all or half of the student
population turns over every year. On the other hand they may offer the
opportunity for a special focus on problems particular to that grade level,
such as the high dropout rate of ninth-graders (Viadero, 1993).
No particular sequence of grade spans is perfect or in
itself guarantees student achievement and social adjustment."
"Almost 10 years ago, NWREL looked at
the available research on grade configuration and concluded that little
evidence existed to determine a cause-and-effect relationship between grade
configuration and academic achievement. The few studies that did exist offered
few clear policy guidelines. For example, one controlled study showed that
sixth-graders did better in a K–8 setting rather than a middle school setting,
but it didn’t demonstrate how the configuration affects other students of
different grade levels (Paglin & Fager, 1997). Many studies also did not
control for school size, socioeconomic factors, and other variables, so results
could be attributed to reasons other than grade configurations."
Maybe we could have formed an advisory committee to study the issue a little further. Could we have done better than proposing a "solution" that clearly is not a solution to the challenges of middle school education? We think so.
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