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Middle Grades to High School: Mending a Weak Link
Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms, Southern Regional Education Board,
2002
As a follow up to a 2000 survey of eighth graders,
the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) tracked those students
through ninth grade to determine which experiences in the "middle
grades" (6-8) are linked to success in higher-level ninth grade
English and math courses. Penned by Gene Bottoms and Sondra Cooney,
director of SREB's middle school reform initiative, this report
finds-perhaps unsurprisingly-that three eighth grade experiences
are most apt to translate into higher achievement for high school
freshmen: 1) studying algebra; 2) reading lots of books; and 3)
expecting to graduate from college. SREB's most important finding
is that "ninth graders who are placed in higher-level courses
have a lower failure rate that students with similar characteristics
who are placed in lower-level courses." View this 12-pager
at http://www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/publications/briefs/MiddleGradestoHS.asp
or order a copy from SREB at 592 10th St., NW, Atlanta, GA 30318.
-Kelly Scott
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