Study Says K-8 Schools May Be More Critical Than Middle Schools In New York City

Education Week (9/1, Sparks) reported that a new study by the journal Education Next "suggests that moving to middle school can be more detrimental to" the academic progress of New York City students "than staying in a K-8 school." The report posted online showed that "students who move from elementary school to middle school experience a bigger dip in mathematics and language arts achievement than their K-8 counterparts," who tended to be absent more frequently. According to Education Week, the study, conducted by researchers at Columbia University, "found students in K-5 or K-6 schools performed slightly better than their K-8 peers in math and language arts in 5th grade, but when they made the move to a middle school, the situation reversed." NY1 News (9/1) adds that "the study was based on data for city school children who were in grades 3 through 8 between 1998 and 2008."