Word: eighth
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Boosting achievement in math and reading is a big factor in the drive to reshape schools in Philadelphia, where reform has come from the top down. A 2002 study found that eighth-graders at the city's K-8 schools typically score 50 points higher on state tests than peers who attend middle schools. Under Paul Vallas, the energetic CEO of Philadelphia's schools, the district is pruning the number of middle schools from 46 in 2003 to eight by 2008, while upping K-8s from 10 to 120. "I haven't seen anything to support the creation of middle...
...Middle schools were originally intended to be nurturing places, but it hasn't been easy to pull that off, says Harry Finks, a veteran middle school teacher and principal, who wrote one of the first handbooks for middle school staff: "You want to create a dialogue, so that an eighth-grade boy can come up to you and say, 'Man, my guinea pig died and I'm really upset.' Most schools don't have that atmosphere...
...There was no comparison," he says. Fritsche "had activities after school from forensics to track--plus the quality of teaching and the tough curriculum." Middle school fans also question the impulse to shelter young adolescents. "You're not in some sort of cocoon. You need to evolve," insists Fritsche eighth-grader René Espinoza. And what happens when it comes time to go to high school, asks Fritsche band teacher Joyce Gardiner: "To go from a little-bitty K-8 school to a high school that has 2,000 kids? I can't even imagine that...
...April 18, Taylor, who is about to enter eighth grade at Lost Mountain Middle School in Kennesaw, Ga., got an instant message (IM) from her friend Sydney Meyer that said, "OMG [Oh, my God] OMG OMG go to your xanga." Someone using the screen name lmmsgirlsgot2hell had left Taylor a comment that read, "Go to my Xanga, bitch." Taylor did--and found a List of Hos. Her name was on it. The list was hurtful, but Taylor says she wasn't as bothered as other girls. "A bunch of the cheerleading chicks spazzed," she says. "Me and all my friends...
...harassing by instant message. It was experienced in the preceding two months by 18% of 3,700 middle schoolers surveyed by researchers at Clemson University. Their study is scheduled to be presented at this month's American Psychological Association meeting. The phenomenon peaks at about age 13; 21% of eighth-graders surveyed reported being cyberbullied recently. And incidents of online bullying are like roaches: for every one that's reported, many more go unrecorded. "Our statistics are conservative," says Clemson psychologist Robin Kowalski. "Part of the problem is kids not recognizing that what's happening is a form of bullying...