Middle Level Education Content-Area Standards Final Report (May 17-18, 2001 Board Meeting)

Since 1966 when Donald Eichhorn introduced the term transescent, meaning a young person in transition from childhood to adolescence, the educational field has been replete with discussions of effective ways to educate middle level learners. This period spanning the early 1960s is generally recognized as the era that launched the modern middle school movement. Although the 1960s movement initiated substantial debate, educational thinkers as far back as the turn of the twentieth century discussed the unique nature of this age group. A debate ensued that resulted in these early reformers calling for the reorganization of American schooling, which led to the development of the junior high school model. Regardless of the position reformers took on how exactly to organize schools, it was evident that educators agreed that young adolescent learners are distinctly developmentally different than young children and older adolescents. Because young adolescent learners constitute a distinctly unique developmental group, research has been conducted to guide the reform of middle level schools and the preparation of middle level teachers. Evidence to support the reform in middle level education around the country has been growing since the early 1960s. The leaders in this area no longer promote a revision in how schools in the middle are organized and conduct business based solely on the combined wisdom of these scholars. Currently, there is a significant body of research that supports the efforts to reform middle level schools in such a way as to focus this work on the developmental characteristics and needs of young adolescents. In a foreword to the definitive guide to middle level research, What Current Research Says to the Middle Level Practitioner, John Lounsbury states: The middle school movement is an educational success story unparalleled in our history. In little over three decades the face of American education has been remade; the intermediate level of education has been given a long overdue identity and has, in fact, been recognized as the level leading in instituting significant educational reform (Irvin, ed., 1997). The research base that now supports the work being done across the nation to rethink how schools address the unique needs of young adolescent learners stresses different ways of organizing and delivering instruction in our nation's middle level schools. These ideas also have serious implications for how teachers should be prepared to work in effective middle level schools. As the Carnegie Corporation stated in its ground breaking report, …