Restructuring Schools in Cleveland for the Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Development of Early Adolescents

Abstract

Following several years of negative trends in achievement and attendance in the middle grades, the Cleveland Municipal School District began phasing out middle schools by restructuring 21 of its 80 K-5 elementary schools into K-8 schools. This study examined Cleveland's restructuring initiative in light of 2 theories on early adolescent development: person-in-environment theory and the focal theory of change. Case studies of two of the K-8 schools revealed highly flexible and adaptable organizations with strong principal and teacher leadership and efficacy that resulted in middle grades in which early adolescents felt safe and protected and had increased opportunities for autonomy, self-expression, leadership, peer-oriented activities, and intellectual challenge. School climate was characterized by personal and supportive relationships among and between early adolescents and school staff. The middle grades environment created in the K-8 schools was very responsive to the psychosocial and cognitive needs of early adolescents. An impact analysis attempted to examine the academic consequences of requiring students to make a transition from an elementary to a middle school while they simultaneously deal with the psychosocial instability of early adolescence. Reading and math achievement of 6th-grade students in all of Cleveland's K-8 schools was compared to that of 6th-grade students in the district's middle schools, while controlling for differences in prior levels of achievement at Grade 5 (i.e., prior to the transition). There was a statistically significant difference between K-8 and middle school outcomes, favoring K-8 schools. The effect sizes were in the medium range (d = .29 and .38), suggesting that the continuity provided by a K-8 school is preferable to the discontinuity associated with transitioning to a middle grades school.