New York City's middle schools need significant reform to better serve poor and minority students, who are being put on "pathways to failure" by an unequal distribution of educational resources, according to a report released last month by Brown's Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Low-performing schools in New York - which the report said have mostly poor and minority students - tend to lack many of the resources and opportunities that the city's generally wealthier, mostly white students receive, including science labs, math and science Regents courses and qualified teachers, according to the Jan. 16 report. The report was based on research by the New York City Coalition for Educational Justice and written by the Community Involvement Program at the Annenberg Institute.
Just 22 percent of students at schools with high poverty rates meet the state's standard for English language arts, compared to 58 percent of students at low-poverty schools, the report said. Only 18 percent of eighth grade students at high-poverty schools achieved proficiency in math in 2004-2005, compared to 75 percent at low-poverty schools. Almost 80 percent of eighth graders at the high-income schools achieved proficiency in science in 2004-2005, while less than 20 percent at the low-income schools were up to par.
The report, citing a "very sizable race and class achievement gap" in "course offerings and instructional resources," calls for a "Marshall Plan" to reform middle-grade school education - which includes sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students at both middle schools and other schools. Its recommendations include expanding schools' curriculums, hiring highly qualified teachers and principals, shrinking class sizes and encouraging strong academic, social and emotional support networks.
But Norman Fruchter, director of the Community Involvement Program, said he doubts the city will implement the report's recommendations. "They're headed in another direction, and I don't think middle schools are a priority for them," he added.
Eric Zachary, a CIP senior project director, called implementing the recommendations a "political struggle."
In a written statement from spokeswoman Lindsey Harr '04, the city's Department of Education acknowledged that middle-school education is a "critical challenge" but defended its progress in recent years, including adding $40 million a year "to fund academic interventions and improve instruction," closing failing schools and creating "small learning communities in large middle schools."
The coalition and the Annenberg Institute chose to examine middle schools as the "weakest link" in the pathway to college because researchers have noticed that many students entering high school are not prepared to cope with the level of work required there, Fruchter said.
"Four out of every five students leave low-performing middle-grade schools without attaining the minimal levels of math and science capacity necessary to meet the demands of high school," according to the report. That lack of preparation has led to the "ninth-grade bulge," the inability of middle-school graduates to advance past the first year of high school, the report said.
The Community Involvement Program, the education policy program that wrote the report, was previously located at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and in September 2006 merged with the Annenberg Institute.
