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The middle school pressure cooker

BoardBuzz was intrigued by this article in today's edition of USA Today. The commentary discusses the increased pressure on middle school students and the often "unrealistic expectations" heaped on students as they enter middle school. The author reflects on a recent meeting at his child's school where the teacher told him and other parents, "Seventh grade is a crucial time for the children," explaining in detail how our kids' academic performance this year could dramatically affect their educational path. "So we stress to the kids that this is when their grades really start to matter." And this concerned the author because his daughter had already become stressed about her increased workload.

These days, cracking the nut of education is a formidable task, and one that is made all the more complicated by America's ongoing struggle to raise national averages and close the achievement gap. On one hand, our policymakers are keenly aware of this problem, as they continue to concoct a variety of jujitsu-like solutions ? from the president's ambitious but deeply flawed No Child Left Behind program to the ongoing experiments with charter schools, voucher programs and standardized testing. And yet as we earnestly try to fix what's broken, we are, in the process, turning an entire generation of children into a giant flock of canaries in the coal mine. Don't get me wrong ? I'm all for the heavier workload in middle school, as it helps prepare students for the academic challenges to come. But when that homework includes asking our kids to focus less on the Louisiana Purchase and star clusters and more on living up to some arbitrary, government-crunched data, then we've truly begun to lose touch with what learning is all about.

BoardBuzz couldn't agree more. What is more important? Getting our students to learn arbitrary facts and figures or growing young people's minds into well-rounded fields of ingenuity ripe for the harvesting? Certainly, kids need to focus on school work, and increasingly so as they progress from elementary school to middle school and from middle to high school, but they also need to play and laugh and learn about art and music and the world around them. Instead of growing their resumes, we need to grow their minds and spirits.

Only recently, Bridgette mentioned to me that she wanted to join an after-school project involved with African relief. This is typical of my oldest child ? she was born with her mom's heart. What was unusual, however, was Bridgette's next comment. "And it'll look good on my résumé," she said.

Yowch! BoardBuzz hopes that as NCLB moves toward reauthorization (we hope!) our lawmakers will take note and not lose sight of the fact that students are more than a test score or a statistic. For more information about NCLB, visit NSBA's web site here.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on December 18, 2007 (boomark / email).