Stuck in the Middle: The Problem of Overage Middle School Students in New York City. Out of School Coalition, 2008.

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OVERVIEW

 

This is a report about the reasons that students become overage in middle schools in New York, and the programs that have been designed to support them in the public schools of New York City.  The three common reasons why students become overage are:  schooling is interrupted, appropriate academic supports are not provided, and a school change is necessary but an alternative placement cannot be found.  Interrupted schooling might be the result of involvement in the child welfare system, attendance due to travel because of family life or immigration.  Students might need to change schools because of behavior, pregnancy, parenthood, or time spent in residential treatment centers.  Appropriate academic supports are often not provided because of undiagnosed disabilities, retention in elementary school, and absences because of suspensions.  Because middle school achievement is connected to achievement in, and graduation from high school, schools must respond to the unique needs of overage students.  They have self-esteem issues, low reading and math skills, behavioral/emotional needs, a high need for individualized attention, and a history of academic failure.  There are many students like these across the country and in the Bronx alone, 26% of middle school students are overage.  

 

New York has for almost thirty years attempted to address the inability of middle schools to prepare students for ninth grade.  Promotional Gates (1981) was a program that retained students in fourth and seventh grades if they did not pass standardized tests, but it held 25,000 students back the first year and had a higher dropout rate than nonretained students.  Eight-Plus targeted struggling eighth graders with intense academic services, but the personnel and curriculum necessary were inadequate.  A third intervention is quite similar to the Promotional Gates, but was to be implemented in 2008-2009. 

 

Programs highlighted in this report have demonstrated initial success and include MS 80, SEVEN PLUS (PS 89 in the Bronx), and STAR Academy (Pickens County, SC).

 

FINDINGS/RECOMMENDATIONS

 

1.     Make data publicly available about the overage middle school population

2.     Develop an early warning system to identify students who are at risk of becoming overage

3.     Promote stability at points of transition (transfers, leaving residential sites or treatment facilities)

4.     Appoint suspension transition, special population, and family court liaisons to help students and families who have interactions with court and foster care systems

5.     Develop innovative programs and options to encourage these students to stay in school. 

6.     Offer an onsite mental health clinic, mentor, extra-curricular activities

7.     Improve communications between agencies that provide services for children

8.     Invest in the arts

9.     Focus on at-risk seventh graders

10. Create accelerated classes that allow for making up missed credits while obtaining high school credits.

11. Offer Saturday classes or classes at high schools

12. Provide professional development opportunities for teachers and parent-focused workshops and classes for parents

13. Support immigrant parents with workshops

14. Expand the high school curriculum to middle grade schools

15. Allow mid-year promotion

16. Permit flexible school day schedules

17. Collect information and make it available in a database for educators

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

Middle school students are at a critical point in their educational career.  Their overage places them in a special population of social, emotional, physical, and academic complexity.  If schools and educational systems do not provide support to help them be successful and complete high school, then they are vulnerable to dropping out and the risk factors associated with dropping out such as early parenthood, poverty, and incarceration.  Research into the history of programming for overage middle school students in New York has offered some ideas to address the problem.  Identification of programs across the country have given some snapshots of how rural and urban cities differ but can offer supports for their context.  The strengths that have been identified in the programs mentioned in the report include small class sizes, off-site location of the program, uniforms, quality of teachers, teacher mentors, team teaching situations, combining students of multiple levels, and mental health services for students and incentive programs for families. 

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. What retention policies and disciplinary procedures set young people up to fall into the three main reasons why they are overage in middle school?

2. How much continuity exists between the juvenile court, child welfare, foster care, and school systems so that students do not get stuck in limbo or fall through the cracks?  If there is lack of continuity, is it being corrected?

3. How can accelerated programs be designed to foster social and emotional development alongside academic preparation?

4. What are the needs of overage middle schools students that can be meet by churches and youth-serving nonprofits?

5. What is the best window and location for effective intervention?  After-school?  Summer?  Weekends?  In homogenous classrooms or heterogeneous classrooms?

 

IMPLICATIONS

It appears that school systems and social institutions are equally responsible for overage middle school students, contrary to the lone responsibility that has historically been placed at the feet of the youth and their families.  Education providers must be more adept at navigating the social systems their students are participants in and must diversity support offerings for the variety of students.  If they do not, the powerful influence of class, privilege, immigration, and trends in lobbying for political attention will deepen and widen the achievement gap.

 

Since we know the social and academic dynamics related to overage middle school students, we must be vigilant about supporting them so that they become high school students and eventually college students without carrying the social and academic baggage with them for the rest of their academic careers.  Because overage middle school students might become overage high school students if we can keep them engaged and supported, we must also be proactive in supporting overage high school students.  The money and resources put into the success of these students at these levels will reduce the economic burden on them and society later.

 

Tamecia R. Jones cCYS