Stagnant reading scores among middle school students in Maryland and Virginia have caught the attention of educators, who are starting to target literacy programs at adolescents after years of focusing mostly on younger children.
In Maryland, one-third of seventh-graders failed the state's reading test this year, about the same number as last year. Reading scores among sixth- and eighth-graders rose at about half the rate of scores in elementary grades.
"We are not happy with what's happening in middle school," said State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick. "People are doing the analysis of the data and saying, 'Hey, what's wrong here?' "
In Virginia, 32 percent of eighth-graders failed a state reading test last year. Thirty-four percent failed in 2003; 31 percent in 2002 and 27 percent in 2001.
The state's reading initiatives mainly have targeted elementary schools.
"Clearly, we need to shift some of that focus to the middle school years," said Charles Pyle, a Virginia Department of Education spokesman. "Or at least broaden the focus."
New data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, billed as the nation's report card, show that the typical 13-year-old could read no better in the 2003-04 school year than the student's counterpart five years earlier. Nine-year-olds, however, showed significant gains.
The findings are adding urgency to local efforts to shore up middle schools. Montgomery County, which has one of the state's highest-performing school systems, will expand literacy programs in the coming year in 14 middle schools. Reading teachers in grades 6, 7 and 8 are getting extra training this summer. "I'm fixated on it right now," said School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.
Baltimore, which has the state's lowest-performing system, has announced plans to replace 11 of 23 middle school principals and spend $6 million to improve those schools. Most of the schools posted substandard scores on this year's state exams.
Yet middle school advocates are laboring in obscurity as the federal government, states and major business leaders spotlight early reading and high school testing and graduation standards.
Federal funding is far higher for pre-kindergarten and elementary reading programs than for adolescent literacy. An education bill moving through Congress would set aside about $1.2 billion in the next fiscal year for reading intervention, of which just $30 million would be aimed at adolescents. President Bush had sought $200 million for the program known as "Striving Readers," which would benefit middle and high schools. The House of Representatives slashed his proposal.
Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, an advocate for struggling secondary students, said literacy initiatives should not stop in elementary school. "We support the emphasis on early childhood," said Wise, a former West Virginia governor, "but you've got to continue the effort all the way through."
