Improving the Middle Grades: Actions That Can Be Taken Now

by Gene Bottoms, Sondra Cooney and Kathleen Carpenter

This publication describes six steps that states can take immediately to strengthen middle grades education.

1. Get the mission right. Set out to prepare students for challenging work in high school.
2. Define what students need to know and be able to do to be ready for high school.
3. Set high but reasonable standards for student performance.
4. Provide lagging students with extra time and extra help.
5. Get more good principals, in part by changing the focus of existing programs for preparing principals.
6. Get more good teachers, in part by changing licensure rules to require all middle grades teachers to have a solid grounding in the subjects they will teach.

Key words: middle grades teachers, teacher certification, content knowledge, leadership preparation, performance indicators

(03V02) Price: $1 each; 8 pages

Goal that it reflects: 3. Achievement in the middle grades for all groups of students exceeds national averages and performance gaps are closed.

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