KC trying something new

Kansas City schools is trying a new process: eliminating middle school and having students from kindergarten through 8th grade all in the same school.

I love these sorts of pilot programs. They're brilliant ideas and it is great to be trying something different. These sorts of programs, though, would be better served if they were being conducted by the Federal Department of Education. I tend not to be a fan of Education on a Federal level, but one area they can do better than local areas is wide-spread research and development. Education has not changed much in the last 50 years, mainly because it is the only industry where there is no concerted effort to develop and rigorously test new methodology. Things like this are moving in the right direction. A federal umbrella over these programs would improve communication and information sharing, allow for better comparisons and controls, and thus would improve education for all students.

The Future of Education?
ABC News

The Kansas City, Mo., school superintendent believes he has found the wave of the future in education: Eliminate middle school and test scores will go up.

For 50 years, the model for American public schools has been elementary school, the middle school and then high school.

But Kansas City, Mo., is eliminating the middle schools in favor of a single "elemiddle" school that will go from kindergarten through eighth grade. There, students in all grades stick with one teacher for the most of the day, so older kids will not switch classrooms for every subject as in the practice in middle schools.

"You're in a nurturing environment," said Kansas City School Superintendent Anthony Amato. "You don't see as many teachers as you would in a large environment, [such] as a middle school 1,000 students."