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[Response remarks of Hayes Mizell on July 24, 2000 at the National Conference on Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in the Middle Grades: Linking Research and Practice. The conference was held on July 24-25 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. and was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board. Approximately 200 state and local educators, researchers, and representatives of other organizations attended the conference. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.]

What Works? Who Cares?

The paper "Where Are We Now? What is the Challenge for Middle Grades Education?" is an excellent summary of both the current state of middle level education in the United States and some of the practices that can lead to improvements in student performance. Yet, any consideration of "Where are we now?" should logically lead us to ask "How do we get to where we need to go?" While this issue was beyond the scope of the paper, certainly it is one of the major challenges to middle grades education.

What the paper does not acknowledge, at least explicitly, is that there is wide and deep disagreement among educators about what the middle grades can and should accomplish for students.

One faction believes that young adolescents are overwhelmed by physical, psycho-emotional, and social challenges that prevent them from focusing on their academic development. These educators regard the developmental idiosyncrasies of this age group as so powerful that teachers and administrators can do little more than provide students with safe and supportive learning environments, and then hope for the best academically. The result is that some students grow academically while many others stagnate or decline.

Another faction of educators believe that when students enter the sixth grade it is time for them to "put away childish things," learn to keep their emotions and behavior in check, get down to work in learning the subject content (even though much of it is repetitive), and respond to adults' preferred methods of instruction (even if it is not effective). These educators believe students' levels of previous academic preparation are immutable. In the operations of these schools, sorting, slicing, and dicing are gerunds made manifest. Though the schools may have structures and processes typically associated with middle schools, the education is de facto adult-centered rather than student-centered.

The attitudes and actions of these two factions sometime overlap, but in any case the ways in which the two groups perceive and treat students has an unintended negative result. The effect is to disempower students as learners and as citizens of the school community.

The messages the students receive from the teachers and administrators with whom they interact is that young adolescents are vulnerable, fragile, unable or unwilling to accept meaningful responsibility, likely to erupt in negative behavior any moment, and incapable of serious intellectual work. In these settings, students are not partners in the educational enterprise, they are either its objects or its victims. These schools do not ameliorate societal inequities, they perpetuate them.

However, another group of educators understands that young people in the middle grades have complex developmental needs and that schools need to address these comprehensively and efficiently. They know the learning environment has to be physically and emotionally safe, organized, structured, and that both adults and students need to learn and be responsible and accountable for creating and maintaining this environment.

They know that schools have to respect students as people with intelligence and talents--perhaps hidden, perhaps nascent, perhaps visible--but with intelligence and talents nonetheless. These educators also understand that there will be no significant academic progress unless teachers work to become masters of the subject content they teach and unless they develop comparable pedagogical skills to engage students in learning that content.

These educators are the backbone of schools that balance attention to students' intellectual development with attention to students' psycho-emotional-social development. Their schools do not sacrifice one developmental need for another.


Divisions block student achievement

So long as these divisions of belief and practice exist among middle level educators, it is not likely there will be the consensus of conviction and action necessary to have a major impact on student learning. This is an important issue. It is not peripheral to curriculum, instruction, and assessment, it is at their core.

It is also an issue to which the national community of middle level educators, and their leaders, have given too little attention. It is an issue that is not on the minds or the agendas of local school boards and superintendents.

The middle grades cannot be all things to all people. Schools cannot treat the development needs of young adolescents as a menu from which they can choose some items but ignore others. Until many more schools embrace a vision that causes them to address the interaction between students' intellectual and personal development, the middle level will continue to be mired in the current confusion of purpose that impairs student performance.

Being clear about the purpose of the middle grades is a necessary first step, but there is also another major barrier that middle level educators have to overcome. As the paper explains, the field of middle level education now knows a great deal about practices that are effective in increasing student achievement. This knowledge covers the gamut, from school organization, to administrative leadership, to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

We know that some practices yield much better results than others, and we know the factors that determine the effective application of these practices. This knowledge is not behind lock and key; the effective practices are not a mystery. A person who looks for them can find them in most every school district, though perhaps in only one school or in only one classroom. Yet, many educators are not seeking out these practices, whether the effective practices are in use down the hall in the same school, or in another school in the same school system, or in another school in the same state, or documented on the Internet, or in a recent issue of the education association's journal.

In the community of middle grades education, as is true at other levels of schooling, there are too few professionals taking the initiative to find, learn, and apply extant practices that can improve student learning.

Of course, this is not entirely the fault of teachers and administrators. The people responsible for school systems-school boards, superintendents, key central office staff, teacher unions-are too satisfied with the current state of knowledge and practice among front-line educators. This is obvious to anyone who examines staff development at the local level.


Sloppy, wasteful staff development

If staff development communicates anything to teachers and administrators about what their school systems or schools expect of them, it is that they do not have to take their own professional development very seriously. Much of the staff development that school systems and schools provide is sloppy and wasteful, with no serious expectation that it will accrue to the academic benefit of students.

This has two negative effects. First, it is a model of low expectations for professional development; second, it is a model too many teachers and administrators emulate. Why should they make the effort to look for, learn, and use effective practices that demonstrably improve the education of young adolescents when the people who are in authority over them apparently value it so little?

At this conference, as at most conferences, speakers will identify and describe practices for which there is credible evidence of effectiveness. At this conference, as at most conferences, there may also be an unstated assumption that this knowledge and the dissemination of this knowledge will logically lead educators to apply the knowledge and thereby increase the performance levels of students in the middle grades. Of course, we have to proceed with this assumption because we have to be hopeful; the alternative is too daunting.

Nevertheless, we also need to be aware that perhaps as great, if a not a greater problem than understanding what constitute effective practices in the middle grades is understanding why more middle level educators are not using what we already know about practices that increase student learning. If we believe we know "what works," why are not more teachers and administrators doing "what works"?

Until many more middle level educators agree on the purpose and desired result of middle level education, and these educators seek and use readily available knowledge to achieve that result, we will continue to focus on the challenges rather than the accomplishments of middle grades education.

Thank you.