For teenage students, academic achievement at the middle school level really does make a difference.
The School District of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Education Fund, in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, recently launched a campaign dubbed "Middle Grades Matter" across the entire district.
The campaign, which officially commenced in late December, is a program that aims to stress the importance of middle school years in the academic and personal development of teenage students.
"Data shows that establishing a positive academic environment during the middle grades will set the pace for continued learning success in later years," Executive Director of the PEF Nancy McGinley said.
"With the school district's dedication and GlaxoSmithKline's contribution, our goal is to drastically improve student achievement at this vital stage."
Some of the plan's district-wide initiatives include reduced class size, student progress reviews and principal coaching.
"The school district is excited to put Middle Grades Matter into action," Philadelphia School District CEO Paul Vallas said in a Dec. 18 press release. "This initiative serves as a crucial link between our primary grades initiatives and our high school education reform."
Over the past several months, research conducted at Johns Hopkins University has shown that academic success in high school is contingent upon a strong middle school education.
The Philadelphia Education Fund first proposed the idea of MGM to the school district near the start of the current school year. From that point, structuring and details of MGM became a joint partnership between the two organizations, with pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline providing the financial support.
Many Philadelphia middle school principals attended a Dec. 18 PEF outline initiative meeting and are enthusiastic about MGM's inception.
"Our goal is to prepare our students for their high school experience," said Clarence Martin, principal of Edwin H. Vare Middle School in South Philadelphia. "What we add is something called rigor. We push instruction in a timely manner and we re-teach the critical subjects that students have not succeeded in."
MGM is scheduled to run through 2007, at the end of which the campaign will be reassessed through analysis of student progress.
