Middle Grades Reform: Breaking Ranks in the Middle and Schools to Watch

A Forum — June 23, 2006

Background

The middle years of schooling, which can range from 5th through 9th grade, are an especially vulnerable and formative period for students. The transition from childhood to adolescence involves more rapid psychological development than any age besides infancy. Middle school bridges the chasm between the worlds of elementary and high school, and the patterns of behavior and identity formed in middle school powerfully shape students’ high school experiences. The fact that more high school students drop out of ninth grade (35%) than in any other year of high school highlights the importance of strong preparation in the middle grades for students of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. Middle schools need to adhere to high academic standards to prepare students for the rigors of high school as well as attend to students’ social-emotional development in order to support academic achievement and facilitate the transitions at during this period.

John Nori, Director of Instructional Leadership Resources at the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), described its recent publication, Breaking Ranks in the Middle™: Strategies for Leading Middle Level Reform (BRIM). BRIM is the fifth in a series of works published since 1989, which include two “Turning Points” documents on the developmental and academic needs of early adolescents and two NASSP “Breaking Ranks” books on high school reform. Building on the lessons from these prior works, BRIM describes key components of successful middle schools.

Based on the challenges unique to the middle years, NASSP has issued a policy paper based on BRIM, which recommends that middle level educators:

1. Recognize and support the middle grades as a unique developmental stage apart from the elementary and high school grades

2. Strengthen middle level organizational structures, instructional practices, and classroom learning environments

3. Improve middle level transitions

4. Identify and promote specialized middle level teacher and school leader competencies

Successful middle level schools focus on three Core Areas:

• Create collaborative leadership and professional learning communities
• Personalization
• Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

These Core Areas and the recommendations made in BRIM are accessed through nine cornerstone strategies which when used as entry points to begin the reform process cut across all three Core Areas and a number of the recommendations. Therefore, principals and leadership teams must select the cornerstone strategy or strategies that touch the recommendations that they decide are their first areas of focus.

Schools to Watch is a national initiative launched by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. Run through state middle school associations, Schools to Watch is a program of continuous educational improvement based on research of best practices for middle schools. Centered on academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and social equity, Schools to Watch identifies the norms, processes, and structures that support their central goals.

Linda Hopping, State Director of the Georgia Lighthouse Schools to Watch Program since 2001, described the common threads of Georgia’s program.

• Professional collaboration and networks to share best practices.
• Data-driven decision-making that results in increased academic achievement, so that results are disaggregated every couple of months to ensure that students’ needs are being met.
• Active learning environment and challenging curriculum for all students: Lighthouse classrooms are noisy and active and students are out of their seats and interacting with each other.

• Small learning communities promote long-term relationships to provide stability. Some schools mix ages and group students by ability within these mixed-age classes. Students stay in the same group for all their middle school years.
• Attention to the affective goals of education.
• Extensive family and community involvement. Encourage parents to stay engaged during the middle years.

The Georgia program selects schools with significant achievements along all the common threads and designates each as a Lighthouse School to Watch. These schools serve as models and mentor other schools in the state. They are required to reapply every three years to ensure they are continuing to meet the Lighthouse Schools to Watch criteria and improvement goals. Schools that are unable to achieve Lighthouse status, but have made significant progress toward meeting the program criteria, may be designated as Beacon schools. The Beacon schools are mentored by the Georgia Lighthouse Schools to Watch directors, and Beacon schools can reapply within two years to become a Lighthouse school. Georgia Lighthouse Schools to Watch are scattered throughout the state, in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

The Lighthouse program costs $12,000-15,000 per year for operating costs, which include site visits to potential Schools to Watch, training of site evaluators, presentations to educators, and other operating costs. In addition to this, each Lighthouse School receives $5,000(a decrease from $10,000 available to each school in 2005) from the state  for staff development, conference presentations, mentoring and networking with other schools in the state. Lastly, an additional $5,000-$6,000 from corporate sponsors  is awarded to Lighthouse Schools to Watch.

Dr. Irvin Howard, Director of California Schools to Watch-Taking Center Stage program (STW-TCS), spoke about another pioneering state Schools to Watch Program started in 2002. The California program is a statewide effort to identify “high impact, high performing” middle grades schools. High impact indicates a school with students of rich diversity, high English Language Learner rates, and students of low socioeconomic status. High-performing means that either the students have reached the median or higher state accountability scores, or else the school has a strong record of growth and outstanding academic and affective programs. Like all Schools to Watch, it highlights schools that have: (1) Academic Excellence, (2) Developmental Responsiveness, (3) Social Equity, and (4) Organizational Support. The program works in urban, suburban, and rural schools; currently there are14 selected schools in California.

The California STW-TCS Program’s website offers a free, downloadable self-rating survey that any middle school can use to evaluate and improve their instructional program. The STW-TCS website also offers access to the statewide network of California Schools to Watch where each school has an online profile accessible to the public with the school’s strategies for achieving the four Schools to Watch criteria, profiles of the community, students, and academic program, the daily schedule, and the principal’s background.

Once model schools are selected, other struggling middle schools with similar populations receive guidance from the model schools through: web-based school tours; visits to Schools to Watch-Taking Center Stage sites; sessions presented at state and national professional development conferences; and principal-to-principal coaching relationships. These reform efforts allow struggling schools to improve over several years later so that they may apply for STW-TCS status.

Unlike Georgia Lighthouse Schools to Watch, California STW-TCS does not receive funding from the state, although they do receive some financial support for conference costs from educational publisher Holt, Rinehart & Winston.  In-kind hours from the staff at California Department of Education and partner organizations are donated for application reading and applicant school site visits. The program’s future goals include increased financial support from foundations or other supporters, better guidance for applicant schools, and increased publicity via the website, conference attendance, mentorship outreach, and formal recognition from the California Department of Education.

Question and Answer

Questions were raised about student outcomes and how well the program is able to support the improvement of schools identified as struggling. Hopping highlighted the requirement that STW schools reapply every three years. She also mentioned the mentoring program in which Lighthouse schools offer support to struggling schools across the state.

Dr. Howard expressed concerns about how ill suited NCLB adequate yearly progress guidelines are to the substantial variation in middle school students’ psychological development. Recommendations from improvement of NCLB include inclusion of multiple assessment measures and strong delineation of focus on middle schools.Both he and Nori affirmed all STW schools serve students in special education programs that they are provided inclusive serves.

Presenters Bios

As Director of Instructional Leadership Resources at the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), John R. Nori coordinates middle level and high school improvement initiatives. A former high school and middle level principal in Rockville, MD, John Nori brings 29 years of experience as an English teacher, principal, and staff developer to his presentations. His practitioner's perspective provides principals with the realities of implementing the concepts put forth in Breaking Ranks: Changing An American Institution, Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform® and Breaking Ranks in the Middle: Strategies for Leading Middle Level ReformTM, as well as Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st Century. John is currently a member of the steering committee of the National High School Alliance and the Board of Directors of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform.  In addition, he is responsible for the NASSP Resident Practitioner Program that includes principals-in-residence in areas of high need and concern for principals including the areas of: Safe and Orderly Schools, Assessment and Accountability, and Business Partnerships.

John began his career in education as an English teacher. In 1987 he entered administration as an assistant principal and became principal of Julius West Middle School in 1992. Later he served as Director of Middle Level Instruction for Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools and ended his public education career as principal of Colonel Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville, Maryland. He has also been a faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University where he has focused on improving classroom instruction and strengthening supervisory skills.

John holds a B.S. in English education from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and a M.Ed. in Secondary Education from the University of Maryland. 

Dr. Irvin Howard has been an educator for more than 30 years with a firm commitment to early adolescent and middle school education.  He received his bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in middle grades education from Illinois State University and has served as a middle school language arts/reading teacher, district language arts coordinator and state accreditation evaluator.

At the present time Dr. Howard is Professor Emeritus of Education at California State University, San Bernardino where he specialized in middle grades/early adolescent education, and he is also Past President of the California League of Middle Schools representing 1200 middle schools in California.  He has been a consultant for the State Department of Education Middle Grades Network Office and has served  as a member of the  California Commission on Teacher Credentialing Committee on Accreditation.  He has published numerous articles and a book related to middle school education, diversity education and instructional strategies, and he has an international reputation in the field of adolescent education, school safety and diversity issues.  Most recently he has returned from a speaking tour on middle school issues which took him to Great Britain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Thailand, and this year he will continue his lecturing in Sweden and China.

Dr. Howard is presently the Director of the California Schools to Watch program and he serves on the Board of Directors for the California League of High Schools, National High School Association , the National Middle School Association and the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform.  He is regularly called upon to testify before the State legislature on matters related to education, adolescent suicide, hate crimes, diversity education and developing safe schools.  He was named the 2000 Professor of the Year in Education at California State University, San Bernardino and was also presented with the 2000 Diversity Award by the institution.

Linda Hopping is 40 year veteran of public education. She earned a BS in elementary education from Texas Christian University and M.eD in educational leadership from Georgia State University. Linda was a elementary and middle school teacher for 11 years before moving into instructional leadership positions. She has served as Curriculum and Staff Development Coordinator, Assistant Principal and Principal in Fulton County (GA) schools. In 1990, Linda has served as the Executive Director of the Georgia Middle School Association. She is active in regional and national middle school reform organizations and is a co-author of the National Middle Schools Association’s Assessment Toolkit. Since 2001, Linda has also served as the State Director of the Georgia Lighthouse Schools to Watch Program.

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