Describes a study to identify the concerns, issues, and questions about middle-level education in four communities. Survey data gathered from teachers, parents, and the general public were clustered into manageable categories. Major concerns included a pervasive sense of anonymity, puzzling curriculum, lack of rigor or challenge, sociability and…

Parent and community concerns in the authors' recent study were organized into seven themes: anonymity, rigor and challenge, safety, sociability and civility, school responsiveness, instruction methods, and information accessibility. Middle schools should hold dialogs with the community, stop rationalizing, acknowledge weak achievement areas,…