Policymakers Urged to Heed Middle Grades

Unless middle is fixed, advocates warn, high school reforms will fail.

Washington

Middle school advocates have launched a campaign aimed at persuading policymakers to help improve education for 10- to 15-year-olds—or, they say, watch efforts to prepare more students for college and work falter.

“It is time to make education for young adolescents a national priority,” Sue Swaim, the president of the National Association of Middle Schools, declared here last week before heading with others to Capitol Hill to push the concern in congressional offices. “Middle schools are the crucial link in the K-12 continuum.”

Despite 30 years of research showing the way, Ms. Swaim said, too many schools are not doing a good job of educating students in the middle grades because the schools lack the “full range of structures...