Shift to High School Difficult for Many, Study Finds

By Robert Rothman

SAN FRANCISCO--Despite their higher levels of achievement in 10th grade compared with 8th grade, many students may be academically ill-prepared for the transition to high school, data from a massive federal survey suggest.

Nearly three-fourths of the 25,000 10th graders surveyed said that courses are harder in high school than they were the year before, and more than half said that teachers and rules are more strict.

But preliminary findings from the study also found that students' achievement in most subjects increased substantially between 8th grade and 10th grade. The gains did not occur uniformly for all students at all...