Accessed on July 21, 2010

From the Mouths of Middle-Schoolers: Important Changes for High School and College

What can we learn from middle-schoolers about reforming our high schools and colleges? More than you might guess, according to Mr. Bushaw.
By William J. Bushaw

WE MAY believe that middle school students are flaky. And why wouldn't we think that? They're undergoing hormonal changes, they sometimes exhibit defiance, and they're not good at accepting advice. Yet, when we took the trouble to ask, we found their opinions about their current school activities and about their preparation for success in high school and college to be thoughtful and enlightening. What's more, their opinions confirm for me that some emerging high school reforms are taking us in the right direction.

Three highly regarded organizations, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International, and the Lumina Foundation for Education, undertook an important project to collect the opinions of middle school students using a scientific polling process.

The idea to poll middle school students took shape at a meeting in Washington, D.C., when Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the NASSP, and I talked about school reform. Opinions range widely on this topic. The Republicans say one thing, the Democrats suggest other solutions. Educators offer different ideas, and parents are vocal with their own opinions. At some point -- we can't remember who said it first -- one of us suggested that there was a voice missing from the conversation: the voice of students -- in particular, middle school students. What do the middle school students think about their schools and the preparation they receive for further schooling and for success in life?

A Method to Our Madness

Having raised these questions, we set about answering them. And while the project loomed large, the three sponsoring organizations had some experience in working at this scale, so we undertook the following steps to learn more about the opinions of middle school students.

  1. Establishing goals. First, we needed to be clear about why we would undertake the daunting task of polling middle school students, and we identified four goals:to bring the voice of middle-level students to the forefront of the national dialogue on school reform;

-to draw the attention of policy makers and the public to the importance of effective schooling for students in the middle grades;
- to inform educators about the strengths and weaknesses of middle-level schooling, as seen through the eyes of the students;
- and to provide a roadmap for the changes needed to improve middle-level education.

  1. Identifying prior research. We checked to determine if anyone else had polled middle school students about their schooling, with a focus on instructional rather than behavioral issues. We didn't find any data of this kind from polls of 12- and 13-year-olds.
  2. Developing questions. Knowing that we wanted to cluster our questions, we identified six broad topic areas: 1) testing, 2) No Child Left Behind, 3) the curriculum, 4) teachers and teaching, 5) preparation for high school and college, and 6) current school experiences. The question-development process was iterative, with extensive involvement by the staffs of PDK, NASSP, and the Lumina Foundation. We presented a draft set of questions to the members of an NASSP advisory committee who were middle-level administrators and made further refinements as a result of their suggestions.
  3. Conducting the poll. The three partners needed a highly reputable polling organization with experience in youth polling. We turned to Harris Interactive, one of the most experienced market research companies and one with considerable experience in the youth market. Using a state-of-the-art polling model, Harris gave us access to a sample of middle school students who had received their parents' or guardians' permission to participate.
  4. The draft questions were forwarded to scientists at Harris, and they suggested important changes to minimize question bias. Harris also provided the appropriate questions to establish the sample's demographics and tested the questions with a representative student panel before suggesting final edits.
  5. Then Harris conducted the poll, using the Harris Poll Online database, supplemented by a sample obtained from Survey Sampling, Inc. Polling began on 14 February 2007 and concluded on 5 March 2007. Qualified respondents were U.S. residents in grades 7 or 8. In total, 1,814 middle-level students successfully completed the survey. Gender, grade level, race/ethnicity, parents' highest level of education, geographic region, and urbanicity were weighted to align the sample with their actual proportions in the population. The sampling error for the total sample was +/-3.3 percentage points.
  6. Analyzing the results. The poll yielded a range of findings, many expected and some surprising. Among the areas addressed were standardized and classroom testing, the helpfulness of teachers, how students act toward one another, the amount of homework assigned, and the ways in which schools involve students in decision making. I encourage readers to explore these findings in detail at

NASSP, PDK, and the Lumina Foundation created a summary of the results, titled A Voice from the Middle: Highlights of the 2007 NASSP/PDK Middle School Student Poll. In August 2007, a copy of this summary was mailed to every middle school and high school principal in the United States.

I wish to focus here on one finding in particular that was highlighted in the summary but not extensively explored: the views of middle school students on their preparation for success in their current school, in high school, and in postsecondary settings. These views are generally strongly positive, but they are not necessarily in line with the reality of what is happening in many American high schools today.

Ready for High School and College?

Middle school students are optimistic, both about their current school situation and about their academic future. Ninety percent of the students polled felt that they were very or somewhat prepared to succeed in their current middle school, and 84% felt that they were very or somewhat prepared to succeed in high school (see Figure 1). Further, 61% felt that their writing, math, and reading skills were strong enough for them to be successful in high school, while only 9% said that they weren't strong enough, and 30% said they weren't sure.

Students also understood the rigors they will face in high school. Ninety-one percent felt that high school work would be very or somewhat difficult, and 87% felt that it was very or somewhat important for high school students to take math all four years. While middle school students predicted that good behavior was the best way to fit in while attending high school, doing well in class followed closely behind. Finally, 93% said there was no chance that they would drop out of high school and not graduate, and 92% indicated that they would definitely or probably attend college.

So these seventh- and eighth-grade students are confident that they are well prepared to succeed in their current school, and they understand that high school will be more challenging but still feel confident about meeting the tougher requirements of high school. Finally, a large percentage of them are also confident that they will attend college.

Yet we know that the high school dropout rate is significantly higher than the sum of the 6% of our student sample who felt that there was "some chance" that they might not graduate and the 1% who said that there was a "good chance" that they would drop out. While high school dropout data are hotly contested, the estimates range from about 17% to about 25%, depending upon the definition of a dropout and the dataset used for analysis. And what about the 92% who said they will definitely or probably attend college? Actual postsecondary attendance rates hover around 66% for students in the first year after they graduate from high school. So why would we observe such a large discrepancy (see Figure 2) between what students tell us about their plans and the actual data?

When I shared this inconsistency with adults, not one person responded with the observation that, while our students want to graduate from high school and attend college, we must be doing something wrong in high schools to dissuade or prevent them from attaining these goals. In fact, the reaction was quite the opposite. In almost every case, adults reacted with comments like "These students have yet to face real-world challenges," or "Wait until they get to high school. They will finally realize that they are not college material."

The High School Mission to Sort and Select

It's easy to dismiss the opinions of 12- and 13-year-olds. But what if we don't? What if we accept that the overwhelming majority of middle school students really do have lofty goals and that, if these goals are not being met, then we are doing something wrong in our high schools? What could that possibly be

I believe that the problem is rooted in a long-standing but increasingly antiquated mission of the American high school: namely, that it is the high school's responsibility to offer a program of study geared to sorting students according to their grades in a variety of classes. Academically successful high school students are encouraged to attend college; their less-successful peers are enrolled in less-challenging courses that lead to jobs requiring only a high school diploma. This approach is referred to as the "sort and select" mission. Hidden within it is the requirement that, in order for some students to be selected for college, other students must be deselected. These are the students who fail or at least do poorly in some of their work.

Let's think about high school reform in light of the opinions expressed by the middle school students in the current poll. Is it conceivable that American high schools could offer a challenging course of study for all students without intentionally and systematically failing some of them? I think so. But it will mean abandoning the long-accepted dichotomy between college preparation and work preparation.

We need to replace the "sort and select" mission with the unifying goal of preparing all students for meaningful postsecondary career opportunities that are linked to their interests. And students' interests might lie in working with their hands, working with other people, working in an environment of constantly changing ideas, or working in a career that follows carefully established patterns. All of these areas include a variety of occupations that require more or less education. Within each area, some occupations require extensive college instruction beyond high school, while others in the same area require an associate's degree or a technical certificate or license.

As we shift our focus to a unifying theme centered on the successful preparation of all students for postsecondary career opportunities, we need to decide how college attendance fits into this equation. If we listen to our middle school students, preparation for college becomes the default setting for all students. But I think there is an important consideration that we often overlook when we think about preparing all students for college: we need to accept a definition of college that more honestly reflects current college attendance patterns.

What Is College?

Most Americans equate college with a four-year, full-time continuous program started immediately after completing high school and resulting in a bachelor's degree within six years. However, in the last 40 years, college has become something very different for large percentages of Americans.

For many young people today, going to college means attending a community college, often part time, while continuing to work full time. Some students earn an associate's degree and proceed more or less directly to a bachelor's degree. Others complete postsecondary coursework that leads to a license or certificate that advances them in their chosen career. And while college attendance was once considered a typical activity only for those in their twenties, immediately following high school, large percentages of Americans now enroll in college at all stages of their adult lives. What's more, our conventional understanding of college has expanded even more with the proliferation of courses and degree programs offered over the Internet.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Fortunately, there are many excellent programs offered in high schools throughout the U.S. that already attempt to address the important issues raised by our middle school students. Several of these programs are highlighted in two publications from the NASSP: Breaking Ranks II and Breaking Ranks in the Middle. Here are my suggestions for five activities on which we should focus our efforts.

  1. Accept that we can challenge high school students without systematically failing some. This notion will be difficult to embrace, for it eliminates the long-standing practice of preparing students for an either/or future: attend college immediately or join the work force immediately. Adopting this inclusive goal requires that we focus on unique definitions of student success. Success for some students will depend on their interest and competency in literature and writing, while for others success will come from high degrees of interest and competency in the arts or in technical areas. The immediate reaction of many Americans to such proposals will be that this initiative will make high schools less rigorous. That is by no means the intent. In fact, this suggestion highlights the need to have all high school students meet higher standards, but not necessarily the same standards.
  2. Eliminate the sink-or-swim transition from middle school to high school. The ninth grade, in particular, represents a weak link in the chain of schooling where students sometimes begin to disengage from their schools and so place themselves in danger of dropping out. Recognizing that ninth-grade students have high failure rates, many high schools now offer new programs designed to help all ninth-graders succeed in making the difficult transition from middle school to high school.
  3. Partner with parents and guardians in providing students with more information about their postsecondary options starting in middle school. Our polling data revealed that students know very little about the courses they need to take to prepare them for college (see Figure 3). Indeed, only 32% said they have a great deal or quite a bit of information about selecting high school classes that will prepare them for college. Even more troubling, middle school students who earn low grades or whose parents have less education have even less information about what is required of them to graduate from high school and feel less prepared to succeed once they get there. Many high schools are addressing this "information gap" by offering ninth-grade classes that outline which high school courses are required for college entrance.
  4. Support programs that reduce the financial burdens that prevent low-income students from attending or completing college. In our poll, 92% of the students who said there is a chance they might not attend college said the reason was that it "costs too much." Students who want to go to college and are adequately prepared to do so should not be denied the opportunity because of financial concerns. Policy makers should consider: 1) increasing the amount of need-based funding, such as Pell Grants, that is available to lower-income students; 2) supporting greater access to low-interest student loans; and 3) evaluating the cost-effectiveness and academic soundness of such ways of delivering postsecondary education as aligning community college curricula with university requirements so that students can complete their freshman and sophomore years in a lower-cost setting before transferring to a four-year campus.
  5. Help students in middle schools and high schools to better understand their interests and relate them to a program of study leading to a postsecondary experience. This practice is already occurring in many high schools that have adopted the career-pathways approach to categorizing classes and helping students create their high school experience. This approach does not pigeonhole students into skills for a single job, as the traditional vocational education model sometimes did. Instead, the focus is squarely on helping students recognize lifelong occupational interests.

We asked. They answered. Now how do we act upon the opinions of these middle school students?

They tell us that they are prepared for high school, that they plan to graduate, and that they plan to attend college. Let's not dismiss their aspirations because they're too young to have experienced the "real world." Let's leverage this optimism to accomplish what we know is important for our nation's future: offering outstanding educational opportunities to as many of our young Americans as possible. Let's discontinue the systematic practice of identifying successful and unsuccessful high school students so that we can learn which ones deserve college and which ones don't. Let's redirect our efforts to preparing all students for some kind of postsecondary learning in keeping with our new definition of college. This is what our middle school students say they want, and this is what our nation needs.