Around the city, you always hear parents talk about the lack of access to high-quality middle schools. By that, they usually mean middle schools with a rigorous curriculum, high test scores and reports of engaged, passionate teachers.
I can tell you firsthand that it is a real problem. Our two boys moved on from their (relatively) high-performing charter elementary school in DC into a “tier-1” charter middle school. We envisioned this institution as a place that would live up to the high standards it had outlined.
Our 14-year-old has generally floundered; he views school as more of a place to go to be social. Don’t get me wrong — he is smart, but he quickly assesses whatever environment he is in and behaves accordingly. No one in school really holds him accountable, so he doesn’t take the learning environment seriously at all. Meanwhile, our 12-year-old just does the work he is asked to do and then slinks back to his desk to kill time binging shows on his school-issued Chromebook.
Accountability at school matters
During a parent-teacher conference last school year, my husband asked one teacher why we never heard from her in real time when our 14-year-old was underperforming. She didn’t have a good answer. He asked another teacher why she didn’t give our 12-year-old more challenging assignments. Her response? “Well, he doesn’t come ask.” My husband replied, “Well, he’s 11. He’s going to get his work done and then go watch YouTube if you let him. Why don’t you try telling him, ‘I know you’re going to finish this up quickly, so when you do, come back to me for another assignment’?” He said there was an awkward silence before the teacher said she’d try that.
The struggle is real … and so is exhaustion
The bulk of the 2018-19 school year felt like an ongoing struggle to keep the kids from the quicksand of complacency. I’d come home from work and ask about Google Classrooms assignments while trying to cook dinner. The kids would say they were doing homework and only the occasional chuckle would tell-tale that they were watching YouTube videos.
On nights when there was time to check homework, we saw that what they were turning in was mediocre, if they did the work at all. I can’t count the number of times my husband and I stood over them continuously reminding them to think critically. “Is this your best work?” we asked. “Can you go deeper?” All this after eight-hour days at work. We wondered, How did this happen? How did our smart, engaged elementary schoolers become these underperforming, unrecognizable middle schoolers? Staying on top of them to hold themselves to high standards was stressful and exhausting, and what we were witnessing was terrifying.
A report issued this year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce — “Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be” — looked across a range of federal education sources and found that among students from families with low socioeconomic status, half of those who had high test scores in kindergarten have already fallen behind by eighth grade. Folks, middle school is where the iron is forged, especially for economically disadvantaged students.
Why are expectations so low?
A few weeks ago I knew we had to dig in and prepare for the work of another school year, to keep them performing above the low expectations. I dug out an email about summer reading and started looking through the suggested titles for rising seventh- and eighth-graders. On the list I found The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman, Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol and The First Rule of Punk by Celia Pérez. Every last title was recommended for readers age 10 and older. To me, the summer reading list was a case in point of everything that is wrong with public education.
Educators agree. According to TNTP Inc’s pivotal “Opportunity Myth” report earlier this year, students spend most of their time in school without access to four key resources: “grade-appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers who hold high expectations.” The book list was exhibit A. Still, I asked both boys if they saw anything on it they might want to read. Our older son not only said no, he said he wasn’t going to do the assignment because “all those books are basic.” Our younger son echoed the sentiments of his brother and added that he spent a lot of time on his summer essay when entering sixth grade and no one at school ever read it, graded it or even acknowledged that he had done it.
At the edge of the precipice
The entire conversation told me a lot. The first issue is that our boys feel they are being asked to read material that is not challenging or interesting. The second issue is that neither is feeling particularly excited or engaged. I Googled a seventh- and eighth-grade summer reading list from an area private school and what I found stunned me. There were books like Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham, and Dark Sky Rising by Henry Louis Gates and Tonya Bolden. All the recommended books were listed as being for readers age 13 and older. I could have cried.
What is happening right now to my kids and other smart and aware socioeconomically disadvantaged students in urban schools is disgraceful. They are allowed to just be “good enough” and coast on through. Rarely is anyone challenging them. Rarely is anyone pushing them to do more. This reality I observe every day is consistent with further findings from the “Opportunity Myth”: “We saw a relationship … between stronger instruction and higher levels of engagement,” the authors wrote. “In classrooms in the top quartile for instructional practices, engagement was 31 percent higher than in classrooms with weaker instruction.”
Why are kids entering seventh or either grade being given a list of books for fifth-graders? We have to start asking these questions of teachers and administrators. The matter is urgent; our children are worth every ounce of fight. Among the conclusions of the “Opportunity Myth” is that our kids just won’t be ready — not for college, not for jobs. There is no time for us to sit back only later to wonder what went wrong.
Allyson Finch Wilson is a parent of three children in DC public charter schools, one at Mundo Verde and two at DC International School. She is a native Washingtonian and a graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She and her husband Michael live in Woodridge. You can follow her on Twitter, where she mostly tweets about local education, sustainability and the family dog, Bella.
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You took the words right out of my mouth! Have we talked? I have a rising 8th grader at one of the best middle schools in DC, we had to have the same conversation with a teacher about challenging the student. The summer reading list consisted of books read in 5th grade! It’s unbelievable!
Thank you for this article. You captured a very real and frightening reality for high achieving parents who are trying to instill an academic work ethic in our kids without partnership from the schools.
I was fortunate to have a rigorous middle school experience at Meigs Magnet School in Nashville, Tennessee that set the tone for my learning going forward. Standards were high and the opportunity to be challenged was ever present. I stretched because expectations were stretched – there was always a home for my next level starting in 5th and ending in 12th grade at Hume-Fogg High School. I was affirmed and pushed which made it easier for me to push myself.
I have long believed that middle school is when kids decide who they are going to be academically, and if they change their minds later it’s really hard to “catch up” especially with math. Which is why I started getting really nervous a few years ago as we approached the middle school years for Logan and Connor.
I wasn’t prepared for how difficult it would be to find a solid option for middle school in the DMV, even though this is the nation’s capital. This article highlights what so many parents of middle schoolers in this area – who know and want a RIGOROUS academic experience for our kids – go through. And for those of us who decide to (or always planned to eventually) go private, getting one of the few admission spots isn’t guaranteed, and paying for it isn’t always feasible.
While we are so grateful to have found a school home for the fall, I realize how much luck and prayer and working to make it happen for over 2 years played into it. But getting a challenging education for capable bright kids shouldn’t require the luck of the draw – from private school admission or magnet lotteries.
But that’s where we are.
Brings me back to how nervous I was waiting to hear back from the lottery whether I got into Meigs. Knowing that this one choice – getting into or not getting into this one school could potentially change the course of my life – which I believe it did. But there were undoubtedly hundreds of other kids as bright and capable as me who the lottery didn’t favor. I literally hit the lottery, and made the most of my experience, and for that I am grateful. But the fact that I could have just as easily not hit, and would have had no recourse or backup is a scary thought.
I have a rising junior and that has not been our experience at all, but I appreciate yours and your taking the time to share it. Hang in there, seems like middle school is when things go off the rails for a lot of kids. We’ve certainly had our share of that.
It’s kind of amazing that they don’t block YouTube on the Chromebooks. That’s a given in Montgomery County.
This article confuses me. If you don’t like your charter school, enroll somewhere else. No one is forcing you to keep your children at a school that you clearly don’t like.
Hello! I just came across this article and I don’t understand a lot of what you’ve written here. If you have expectations for your children in regards to their efforts on work completion – that’s a family conversation. Schools cannot be expected to motivate students.