TIMSS results show middle schools still in trouble

Test results show middle schools still in trouble

Some dismiss these as years when kids
are developing, not learning much

By Richard Whitmire
Gannett News Service
June 15, 1997

The wide gap in math performance between fourth- and eighth- graders reported this week renews the controversy about American middle schools.

"Middle schools are generally in trouble with student performance," said Hayes Mizell, a middle-school expert with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation in New York.

"Many middle schools are unclear about their academic mission and rootless about their attention to academics, particularly with low-performing students," Mizell said.

The test results released Tuesday from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study -- an international snapshot of math and science performance taken in 1995 -- showed American fourth graders at the top of the world in math and eighth-graders below average.

Many educators see the middle school years, grades six through eight when children endure the rites of puberty, as a time when students' developmental needs outweigh their academic needs.

"These beliefs have shaped -- one might say infected -- the cultures of many middle schools," Mizell said.

In elementary school, math instruction has been sharpened by reforms sparked by groups such as the National Science Foundation and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Those groups targeted elementary schools first.

But in middle schools and junior highs, students face the twin problems of a diluted curriculum and underqualified teachers, reformers said -- the result of the physical development point of view.

"There are teachers in eighth grade whose own math understanding isnot what it needs to be, " said Gail Rosen, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Nationally, about one in four math teachers lacks even a minor in math.

"The level of abstraction that's called for in the middle school is really a leap up from what you need for elementary," Rosen said. "We need teachers who are not just a half step ahead of their students, but have a really deep understanding (of math)."

And there's evidence of the middle school math curriculum loses the sharp focus of the elementary school years.

American eighth-graders study as many as 35 separate math topics, compared to 10 or fewer offered in Japan or Germany.

"We teach too many things and we teach them like veneer on furniture," said school reformer Chris Cross of the Council of Basic Education. "We work around the country, and middle schools are the most troubled areas we see."

Cross and other reformers said it's clear that dramatically raising standards can produce dramatic results.

Take the Field School in the suburbs of Chicago, where 85 percent of the eighth-graders take algebra, compared to 23 percent around the country.

Fields is part of 20 school districts stretching across suburban Chicago that banded together into the First in the World Consortium, a name taken from the goals of the governors to make America first in the world in math and science by 2000.

While it appears certain the country will fall short of the larger goal, these schools already have achieved part of that goal. They administer the Third International Mathematics and Science Study as if they were a separate nation.

Friday the consortium announced its fourth-graders ranked first in the world in science and fourth in math, exceeded only by Singapore, Korea, and Japan.

Field Principal Frances McTague said the key to their success is preparing average students to take algebra in eighth grade, not just the gifted. That required revamping the entire kindergarten-through-eighth-grade curriculum, elminating the usual drill and repetition.

By the middle of third grade, worksheets with columns of arithmetic problems disappear from homework assignments, replaced by problem-solving exercises.

"There's been some controversy with our district," McTague said, "with parents concerned their kids don't know the basic fcts and can't multiply in their heads. But what we've seen is our children are able to think intuitively at an earlier age."

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Test results show middle schools still in trouble

Some dismiss these as years when kids are developing, not learning much

Some dismiss these as years when kids
are developing, not learning much