Although rearranging school organizational features is a popular school reform, little research exists to inform policymakers about how grade spans affect achievement. This article examines how grade spans and the school transitions that students make between fourth and eighth grade shape student performance in eighth grade. The authors estimate…

American educators and researchers have spent decades attempting to determine the most effective middle level school configuration. Although various models have been conceptualized in order to resolve one of our most extensive educational reform movements, a recent nationwide increase in K-8 schools suggest interested parties have accepted the K-8…

During the last three decades Swedish education has undergone radical decentralisation involving increased school autonomy. One aspect of this change is the gradual weakening of the state regulation of teaching time. Thus, Sweden is somewhat of an extreme in the EU. This is accentuated by a five-year experiment, where 900 compulsory schools were…