Sixth Grade Data Influences My Secondary Educational Belief

In 2002 I was asked by our district superintendent to lead the work in secondary school redesign for our district. I was honored to be asked to take advantage of all that I learned as a teacher and administrator and use my experiences to benefit the students and staff in our large district. What I found could influence the thinking of all middle and high school educators.

One of my first actions was to ask our performance and assessment office to help me to research student outcomes of sixth graders in our district in language arts and mathematics. Board members and the superintendent were interested in finding out if we should continue our middle schools as grade 6-8 schools, or should we be moving the sixth graders back to the elementary school. I wanted to do the research because only in sixth grade could we compare practices and outcomes between school levels. Most of our sixth graders were housed in secondary schools, but we had a significant number of sixth grade students attending our elementary schools. I saw this as a possible way to compare the instructional and organizational practices of secondary versus elementary schools and the impact on student achievement.

Our data experts told me that within our district we could compare the two sub groups of sixth graders and there were enough students in both school settings to make the results useful and reliable. This study was done on two separate occasions and the results were remarkably consistent and revealing. These results provide secondary educators with some important information that should be influential in our discussions of secondary school redesign.

Our findings produced the following information:
• Demographic data of both groups showed that the student populations were very similar in both settings.
• Testing data for both groups showed that there was no appreciable difference in student achievement based on the district’s standardized tests for fifth grade.
• Sixth grade students in elementary schools outperformed similar students in the sixth grade middle schools by a significant margin in language arts.
• Sixth grade students in elementary schools outperformed similar students in the sixth grade middle schools by a significant margin in mathematics.
• Seventh grade students who were new to middle school had greater achievement declines than seventh grade students who originally attended sixth grade in a middle school. However, overall their achievement remained higher than the middle school group.

As a result of this data, I wanted to determine the difference in practices within the two school settings that may have resulted in the achievement differences that became apparent. I am a secondary educator and I was not interested in turning our middle schools into elementary schools, but I am interested in improving the secondary schools practices if it will lead to greater student achievement.

By going out and visiting schools, speaking with educators of sixth graders from both elementary and secondary schools, there were some interesting outcomes that I learned and those results have influenced much of what I now believe to be necessary for improving secondary student achievement. My findings are not about sixth grade, but really they are about what all secondary educators could learn from our elementary partners. Many of my own beliefs were reinforced, and new thinking became necessary. The research and data led me to these conclusions:
• Teaching in elementary school is much less bound by time with only one teacher responsible for instruction.
• Teaching in elementary school tends to be more engaging and hands-on instructionally.
• Since there is only one teacher the students become very familiar the strategies and practices that the teacher uses on a regular basis.
• Since students have only one teacher, students know the teacher very well and the teacher knows the students very well.
• Teachers feel a strong sense of ownership for their students’ academic outcomes since they are the primary (and often the only) teacher for their students.

My work on school redesigned has been strongly influenced by this research. It appears to be closely aligned to what educational leaders around the nation believe to be true. I will share what I believe and how it is embedded in all that I write and present in my next blog. I look forward to hearing from you, since I feel strongly that changes in thinking lead to changes in practice, and both occur only through conversations and discussions that continually occur over time.