When students enter middle school, they are confronted with the necessity of learning from complex content-area textbooks. Many students find these texts boring, and they may lack the higher-order reading comprehension skills they need to tackle complex text. Yet the ability to read informational text is essential to success in middle school and…

Concern over low student achievement led to creation of a community-based Maryland mentoring program for at-risk African-American students. Mentoring was successfully used for teaching and coaching, strengthening racial harmony, promoting social change, ensuring equal education, and creating opportunities for personal empowerment. By portraying…

Several schools that eschewed the middle school model and remained K-8 discovered anecdotally that their students showed fewer behavioral problems and higher academic achievement than many students enrolled in middle schools. On the basis of studies that verified these observations, school district leaders in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Philadelphia…