Death to Middle Schools?

by Collin Hitt An intriguing new study comes from a team of researchers led by Jonah Rockoff. It looks at middle schools in New York City, and compares them to elementary schools with a K through 8 grade span.  Students in the middle schools do worse than their peers who stay in the same school...

by Collin Hitt

An intriguing new study comes from a team of researchers led by Jonah Rockoff. It looks at middle schools in New York City, and compares them to elementary schools with a K through 8 grade span.  Students in the middle schools do worse than their peers who stay in the same school from the early grades until high school.

Read or listen to a podcast about the new study here.

Rockoff, by the way, is the co-author of the first robust study of charter schools in Illinois.  Along with Caroline Hoxby, his 2005 study of Chicago International Charter School set a new standard for inquiry into charter schools and school choice. (pdf).

Chicago International, it is worth pointing out, runs fourteen charter school campuses in Chicago and Rockford.  None of those campuses is a standalone middle school.