Springboard Schools News

How the Best California Middle Grades Schools Help Students Succeed

New report, Balancing Act: Best Practices in the Middle Grades, reveals keys to success.

San Francisco, March 27, 2007 – From Washington DC to the small school districts in rural California, the question of how to best serve students in the middle grades – grades six, seven and eight – is a major concern as educators work to help their students succeed in school. The middle grades are the critical bridge between elementary schools and high schools, and provide a foundation for children to succeed beyond school, in college and careers.

Balancing Act: Best Practices in the Middle Grades is the concluding report in the three-year California Best practices Study conducted by Springboard Schools. The report adds to the knowledge gained through similar studies of Elementary Schools, High Schools, and School Districts compiled over the past years. It completes the picture of how high-performing yet highly challenged schools do the good work they do, and like the other reports, shows lower-performing schools and districts ways in which they can be more effective.

The ten high-performing schools profiled in Balancing Act were among the highest performing middle grades schools in California. They are contrasted with five “average performers” serving a similar demographic profile, but not getting the same strong results. The study identifies what the high performers had in common and what set them apart from average-performing middle grades schools.

Despite shared challenges and similar results, the schools studied were remarkably diverse. A key reason is structural. Most middle grades schools in California serve grades K-8, 6-8 or 7-8. All of these grade configurations appeared in the group of high performers.

What do these remarkably diverse schools have in common? A lot, it turns out:

Aligned curriculum: High performers work harder to align curriculum to standards, between classrooms, and between grades. Districts can have a positive impact, especially by helping schools align curriculum so students moving from elementary to middle to high schools have a smooth, continuous path of learning.

Systems and structures that make high standards real: High-performing middle grades schools create systems and structures, including a master schedule, that successfully balance the aims of access, rigor and flexibility.

Intervention and acceleration: The high performing middle grades schools used data to identify students who were struggling. These schools acted with a sense of urgency to intervene with sufficient intensity to accelerate the learning of students who have fallen behind.

Systems and structures that support teachers: High-performing middle grades schools construct systems and structures that support teachers to do their best work. Capacity building and professional development for teachers, combined with teacher collaboration in professional learning communities, helps teachers do a better job with their middle grade students.

Using data to guide continuous improvement: The high-performing schools were more likely than the average performers to rely on local benchmark assessments to monitor student progress and to use data mentors to help teachers meaningfully use data.

Engage and challenge students: High-performing middle grades schools focus explicitly on student engagement as a key ingredient for success. Student engagement is a central challenge – as anyone who has worked with early adolescents understands. Leaders in high-performing middle grades schools create programs that strikes the right balance between students’ personal interests and core academic courses.

High-performing middle grades schools are located in many parts of California. The high-performers cited in Springboard Schools’ report include large and small schools in rural and urban districts. The high-performing schools cited in the study include:

Alvarado Intermediate, Rowland USD, Rowland Heights
Edison Computech Middle, Fresno USD, Fresno
Elizabeth Hudson, K-8 Long Beach USD, Long Beach
Hughes Middle, Long Beach USD, Long Beach
McGarvin Intermediate, Garden Grove USD, Westminster
Monterey Highlands Elementary, Alhambra USD, Monterey Park
Ramona Elementary, Alhambra USD, Alhambra
Repetto Elementary, Alhambra USD, Monterey Park
Riverview Elementary, Kings Canyon Joint USD, Parlier
Ynez Elementary, Alhambra USD, Monterey Park

Springboard Schools is providing a series of free briefings addressing the findings of the report for policy makers, educators and others interested in school reform around California and in Washington DC. Balancing Act: Best Practices in the Middle Grades, is available from Springboard Schools website: SpringboardSchools.org, or by contacting Springboard Schools.

About Springboard Schools

Springboard Schools is a California-based nonprofit and non-partisan network of educators committed to raising student achievement and narrowing the achievement gap. Springboard Schools was founded in 1995 as the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC). Since that time, Springboard Schools has worked with over 100 districts, serving more than a million students in the Bay Area, Central Valley, and Southern California.

Researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Research on the Context of Teaching found that achievement in Springboard Schools’ (then BASRC) client schools rose at a faster rate than in a carefully-matched comparison group of schools, and that those schools that implemented the program with the most fidelity made the greatest gains.

Springboard Schools works with education organizations and their leaders at every level of the system to provide them with knowledge, skills and tools to create school systems in which good teaching is the norm in every classroom for every student. The Springboard Schools research team has developed a reputation as a reliable source of information that is useful to both practitioners and policy-makers.

For more information, please visit the Springboard Schools website: www.SpringboardSchools.org, call 415 348-5500, or email info@SpringboardSchools.org