Release: #06-122
October 4, 2006

Contact: Tina Jung
E-mail: communications@cde.ca.gov
Phone: 916-319-0818

SACRAMENTO — In recognition of October as the Month of the Young Adolescent, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell today released 12 recommendations to launch a new-century vision for middle grades education in California. The recommendations, collaboratively forged by the California Middle Grades Alliance,* will be the foundation for Taking Center Stage—Act II: Closing the Achievement Gap for California’s Middle Grades Students, scheduled for release in early 2008.

"Middle grades can either be a time when students become discouraged and give up or become a springboard to life-long learning," said O’Connell. "These children experience swift physical, mental, and emotional changes that alter every aspect of their lives. The depth and breadth of this transformation require us to create the appropriate learning conditions and deliver a rigorous and relevant education that meets the needs of these young people."

The 12 recommendations are framed upon the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform’s four organizing criteria: academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity, and organizational support.

The final draft recommendations are:

Academic Excellence

1. Rigor. Hold high expectations and provide numerous opportunities for each middle grades learner to succeed. Use California’s content standards, frameworks, adopted and aligned instructional materials, and common formative assessments as the coherent foundation for rigorous curriculum and instruction.
2. Instruction, Assessment, and Intervention. Engage middle grades students with challenging lessons and opportunities to think critically and demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways. Differentiate strategies to deliver standards-based, grade-level instruction that reflects individual student needs and results from ongoing common assessments. Use individual student progress data to deliver appropriate, accelerated classroom and schoolwide academic interventions and enrichments.
3. Time. Institute flexible schedules that provide recommended and required instructional minutes for core academic classes and accelerated interventions. Provide sufficient time before, during, and after school so that each student has access to additional academic and interest-based classes and opportunities to meet social and personal needs. Schedule regular common planning time for professional learning communities to analyze student data, coordinate instruction, and communicate with families.

Developmental Responsiveness

1. Relevance. Meet the needs of middle grades students by developing a rich set of curricular and co-curricular opportunities that infuse learning with technology, visual and performing arts, career/real-world connections, service- and project-based learning, and multicultural experiences. Engage students as lifelong learners by developing socially relevant cross-curricular understanding and opportunities for meaningful participation before, during, and after school.
2. Relationships. Foster close relationships for accountability and engagement among students and with adults who share extended time through grade, content-area, or interdisciplinary small learning communities. Provide an advisory program to ensure that each middle grades student has frequent contact with an adult mentor to plan and assess his or her academic, personal, and social development.
3. Transitions. Work with elementary and high schools to inform students and families about academic and behavioral expectations and to promote seamless, articulated transitions.

Social Equity

1. Access. Provide all middle grades students equal access to a well-prepared, qualified, caring staff and a rich learning environment that includes: grade-level standards-based instruction; academic interventions; learning resources; leadership and recognition opportunities; exploratory programs; sports, clubs, and enrichment activities; and, to the extent possible, placement in heterogeneous classes.
2. Safety, Resilience, and Health. Create and sustain a fair, safe, and healthy school environment through a positive discipline policy; civic and character education; safe and engaging facilities; access to adult mentors and counseling; and school and community health and social services.

Organizational Support

1. Leadership. Foster distributed leadership, collaborative decision-making and regular data analysis to realize and sustain a middle grades vision for focused learning and continuous improvement.
2. Professional Learning. Build and sustain professional learning communities through recruitment, training, coaching, and interdependent collaboration. Use data, research, California Standards for the Teaching Profession, and best practices as the basis for continuous professional growth and improvement in instruction and student achievement.
3. Accountability. Organize district, school, and community stakeholders to hold high academic and behavioral expectations for all middle grades students and to be accountable for closing the achievement gap. Provide sufficient time, talent, training, and resources to support student learning and rigorous standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
4. Partnerships. Engage families, businesses, local and state agencies and organizations, higher education, and community members as partners in supporting middle grades student achievement.

The recommendations are the culmination of 18 months of work by the California Middle Grades Alliance, a collaborative partnership of 10 statewide organizations, including the California Department of Education, committed to improving education for more than 1.44 million middle grades students enrolled in the state’s public schools. Organizational members of the alliance have formally endorsed the recommendations.

The work of the alliance in formulating the recommendations echoes efforts led by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform to improve academic achievement among the nation’s middle school students. The forum is a broad-based coalition comprised of state departments of education (including California), educational institutions, foundations, and national, state and regional entities interested in improving middle grades education. 

"The release of these 12 recommendations signifies the beginning of our efforts to gather innovative, effective grade-level strategies and resources and disseminate them to all of California middle grades educators," said O’Connell. "Refining and building on these recommendations will be an ongoing process."

 The department’s Middle and High School Improvement Office is currently building a Web portal to middle grades research, resources, connections, and sample school practices.

Scheduled for release in early 2008, Taking Center Stage—Act II will feature easy, online access to strategies for implementing the 12 recommendations as well as a guidebook for middle grades policymakers, educators and parents; video clips of recommendation-based practices; and important resources.

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*Members of the California Middle Grades Alliance:

California Department of Education
California Teachers Association
Association of California School Administrators and its Middle Grades Council
California School Boards Association
California County Superintendents Education Services Association and its Secondary Subcommittee of the Curriculum and Instruction Steering Committee
California League of Middle Schools
California Middle Grades Partnership Network
Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID)
Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR-UP)
California Schools to Watch — Taking Center Stage Model School Program