Are We Setting Our Middle Schoolers Up for Failure?

Students across the country experience a sharp and often stressful transition when entering high school for the first time.  High school generally means more challenging academic demands as well as a dramatic change in school learning climate.  When this transition also includes a shift from a “good” lower school to a “bad” high school—as is so often the case for urban adolescents—the already difficult situation may be compounded.

Research has shown that a variety of risk factors can make a student vulnerable in ninth grade, such as prior academic performance, school attendance, and social distractions.  However, even top students who evade many of the risk factors regularly fail when attending poor performing high schools.  In a study done by the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) on academic difficulty during the high school transition in Chicago Public Schools, researchers found that even students who entered high school performing at grade level in mathematics and reading and those who attended high school regularly faced a nearly one-in-three chance of failing at least one core course.  Those who entered high school with skills above average for their grade faced a 25 percent chance of failing a core course.  Essentially, even successful middle school students will likely fail in a failing high school.

In New Orleans public schools, recent academic performance and growth at the elementary and middle school levels has considerably outpaced that of the high schools, leaving many successful eighth grade students to attend failing high schools.  In fact, while the lowest overall School Performance Score (SPS) for schools offering middle school grades in 2009 was 36.1, seven of New Orleans’ 30 high schools had an SPS lower than that.  Furthermore, while the average 2009 SPS for direct-run Recovery School District (RSD) high schools was 24.2, the average SPS for RSD-run schools offering middle school grades was 44.8.  This means that even the worst middle schools in New Orleans are performing at nearly twice the level of the worst high schools.

As seen in the table below, there is a significant gap between the number of middle school students at high or moderate performing lower schools and the number of seats available at equally high or moderate performing high schools (assuming 2010 enrollment is reflective of future enrollment).  Based on these 2009-2010 enrollment numbers, roughly one in twelve seventh graders at moderate- to high-performing schools will attend an “academically unacceptable” high school.  All 534 seventh graders at low-performing middle schools–over 20 percent of all seventh graders–will also continue on to a low-performing high school.

So, what exactly does this mean for the 7,500 sixth, seventh and eighth graders who will make the transition into a New Orleans high school in the next few years?  If the CCSR study is telling, the prospects aren’t good.  New Orleans can’t wait any longer to turn around its failing high schools.

In October, we will release our latest report, Surveying the Public High School Landscape in New Orleans.  The report will provide a detailed assessment of the current state of high schools in New Orleans and their ability to educate our students and prepare them for college and careers. It will also make some concrete recommendations for how we can improve the odds for today’s middle school students.

Update: Click here to download Surveying the Public High School Landscape in New Orleans.