Do U.S. Middle Schools Have a Wait Problem?

In a study drawing on Program for International School Assessment (PISA) results and linking closely to the National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP), researchers found that the math achievement of 8th and 9th graders in the United States lags far behind that of their peers in 30 other countries. Even when researchers looked at white U.S. students with at least one parent with a college degree, only 10.3 percent of U.S. 8th and 9th graders score at an accomplished level in math on the PISA—compared to 28 percent in Taiwan and at least 20 percent in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Finland. 

Study authors (Hanushek, Peterson, and Woessmann) blame the United States's failure to raise standards for teaching and learning in math and science. In his analysis, Washington Post journalist Jay Mathews points the finger at softened expectations in U.S. middle schools. It's the "muddle in the middle" critique—that middle schools have eschewed challenging academics in favor of tending to students' social, emotional, and physical needs. Citing Tom Loveless, Mathews's column falls just shy of calling for a return to tracking in middle school.

Previous issues of Educational Leadership have also staged the debate over whether the middle school model is broken. Cheri Pierson Yecke wrote about moving to a K–8 model to improve middle school and offered 10 strategies to ease the transition. In a rebuttal to Yecke, Rick Wormeli defended the middle school concept, when it's fully implemented by knowledgeable practitioners.

Mathews claims the Hanushek study as evidence that academic challenge stalls in the middle grades, producing collateral damage stretching into high school. What are your thoughts?