Middle School Issue

In today's world there are three major schools that you enter through out your K-12 career; elementary school, middle school, and highschool. In the middle school stage the children are from the ages of 11-14 and going through puberty. It is a very tough time for the kids both physically and emotionally. “One middle school student is like three high school students in terms of their behavioral needs and the issues you’re confronted with,” said Fred Walsh, principal of the School for International Studies in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Many education system employees feel that the transition between elementary and middle school can be too traumatic. The students need consistancey and not a big transition to throw off their groove.

The other transition from middle school to the highschool has got education system employees worried as well. This is because today highschool educators only have four years to really prepare their students for college and most feel that this is not enough time.

As a solution to these two problems two new types of schools have been going up all over the nation. The first one being a K-8 school where the students keep that consistancey and keep the support system for them that has been there for them since they were very young. The second type of school is the 6-12 school giving the educators more time the prepare the students for college. The educators who like the K-8 system don't like the 6-12 system because they feel that the younger students will be more traumatized by being surrounded by the older children of highschool. On the other side of the fence the educators who like the 6-12 schools don't like the the K-8 schools because they feel they are still being babied. They feel the students need the older students as role models and they feel that the younger students would be more comfortable talking to the older students for support and help.

Sometime in the near future if is known we will see a definate removal of the middle school stage and a dominant set of either of the new schools. I personally am in favor of the 6-12 schools because my main group of friends was always older than me by quite a bit. I also did not feel as prepared for college as I could have been when I left the high school.

The article did a great job of showing both sides of the spectrum and doing it in a nonbiased way.