Stunted Progress

I kind of feel bad for the city's fourth grade teachers. Over the last 8 years, they've gotten kids to make slow, but steady progress on the NAEP reading tests. We're not talking the kind of progress you see on the state tests, but it's progress all the same. That takes a lot of hard work and dedication and they deserve to be commended for that.

But then those kids get to eighth grade and the wheels seem to fall off. According to the same set of NAEP results, the level of eighth grade success is almost exactly the same as it was in 2003.

The crazy thing about this is that today's eighth graders used to be fourth graders, where presumably they were getting better. Then a few years later, it's gone and there's no improvement. What gives?

I know there's all sorts of research and anecdotal evidence about the drop off in student success that seems to coincide with middle school. A lot of that may have to do with the transformation from sweet little kids to raging hormone monsters. But even if that's the case, it seems like we need to do something to adust for that.

As a former middle school teacher, I know it's hard. But all the fourth grade gains in the world don't matter much if they're gone in four years. Progress really only matters if it can be sustained.

Premature Celebrations

When I was teaching in a Bronx middle schoo, I was always a little put off by the end of year celebrations that we threw for the eighth graders. There was a prom and a "senior trip" and a big graduation ceremony. I think when I graduated from eighth grade, my family went to celebrate at Applebee's.

I'm not opposed to celebrating the accomplishments of students, but I do think that the celebration should bear some relation in scale to the accomplishment. Frankly, graduating from eighth grade doesn't warrant that big of a celebration.

The Journal-Sentinel out of Milwaukee just ran an opinion piece on this point that got me thinking. The fact is, that for too many kids in Milwaukee and in the Bronx, eighth grade is the last educational milestone that they are actually going to pass. With the graduation rate at about 50%, middle school (at the age of 14) becomes the highest level of education that many students are going to obtain. That's awfully sad.

So does making a big deal out of eighth grade lower the bar? Does it say to kids, "You've really accomplished something here so you can stop now"?

I don't know. I don't think so. It certainly doesn't reflect well on the values and priorities of parents, but I don't think it actually makes the situation worse. In the scope of problems facing urban education, I don't think premature celebrations even cracks the top ten. That said, they aren't exactly among the solutions either.