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| Disciplinary actions against students by grade, Dallas ISD, 2012/13 Click on the above image to enlarge. |
Now Dallas ISD has the questionable distinction of having all three middle school grades, 6th through 8th grades, as the grades with the most disciplinary problems. They are all three even worse than 9th grade, the previous grade with the highest number of disciplinary actions recorded. Is anybody watching?Yes, parents are watching, and have been watching for some time! Notice how the number of children being withdrawn from DISD after 5th grade has been increasing, especially since 2006 when the transfer of 6th grade into middle school started:
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| Students leaving Dallas ISD after 5th and 9th grade over past decade. Click on above chart to enlarge. |
This chart also shows the wonderful progress DISD has made with the transfer into high school and then from 9th grade to 10th grade. We are now loosing less than half of the students we used to loose during this critical transfer. Our 10th grade enrollments are some of the largest in DISD history while the 9th grade enrollments are some of the lowest in decades due to the elimination of the "9th grade bulge."
Similar patterns relating to the discipline problems in middle schools have been documented across the nation. Thousands of middle schools have closed over the past 20 years. School districts have paid attention to mounting research that middle schools are damaging to children. (See a collection of such research at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2012/02/separate-middle-schools-vs-k-8.html .)
There are now over 4,000 more K-8 schools in the US as that alternative has been taken repeatedly. Rosemont Elementary School in DISD is now in the process of that transition into being a K-8 school. They will not be the last DISD school to make that transition! As parents see the research they will demand change. The damage in middle school is too obvious.
Children should not go through the puberty transition among strangers. The years from age 11 to age 14 are a very delicate time that should be spent with teachers who have known the child for as many years as is possible. Discipline problems will not erupt with the monumental force they now do within DISD during the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, if those grades were in elementary schools. That is well documented with 6th graders, and with all grades across the nation when you look at K-8 schools.
Addendum: In June 2013 the proposed 2013/14 budget was introduced with a decrease of teachers planned for middle schools, moving from 24/1 to 25/1 student/teacher ratios. This move will only increase the damage to achievement happening in middle schools.
