Now we see it.

Throughout my years in educational leadership I have heard fellow educators sigh over and over about middle school. They frequently talk about the problems at this age and the lack of performance of students in middle schools. More times than I can count, someone will say, "if we could just get our middle schools right." Recently I was talking to some school board members who were contemplating changing their schools to a K-8 system to eliminate middle schools. They believed that somehow these kids would magically become more equipped for the academic demands of grades 6-8 if they could be kept in a building with younger students. While there is some research to indicate that students may behave a little better if they are role models for little guys in their school, I advised them that reconfiguration would not solve their problem.

Middle school is when the failings of our educational system become most visible. This is when we see the results of students who have not developed reading and math skills. This is when executive functioning becomes so important. Students who have not learned to manage themselves independently begin to become a real problem. If we have engaged in grade retention to solve instructional issues we can now see huge gaps in maturity. Boys and girls in sixth and seventh grade who have been retained once or twice will look a decade older than their peers who are still not teenagers. 

Yet many still insist that we have a middle school problem. I don't agree. If a school district is struggling with a middle school population, they are simply seeing what did not happen in earlier grades. Kids who haven't learned to read and haven't learned to function in elementary school will transform into behavioral problems in middle school. The problems occurred so much earlier. It just takes that long for us to see them.