Education Degradation IV (Parts I-III start way at the bottom)

Is it smart to put 14-year old girls in closed environments with 18-year old boys?

That question, tossed around previously on WLIP, came back to me upon hearing the details of the brutal sexual assault recently perpetrated in Lincoln Park.

Everything is wrong with that incident, but it stuck out that the attackers spanned from 14 years old all the way to 17. 12th graders hanging out with 9th graders?

When Kenosha switched to the middle school model, 9th graders, who’d in my day have been "little junior high kids", found themselves in close proximity to older students with drivers licenses, money, sex drives, and occasionally gang affiliations and drug connections. They would now share the same locker rooms, go to the same dances, often attend the same parties, however they would not possess the same maturity or judgment. Not surprisingly they haven’t adapted well.

It’s jaw dropping, but would you believe that Wisconsin 9th graders have had the highest rate of drug and weapons suspensions of any grade for eight years straight? What’s more Kenosha’s 9th graders not only consistently have the highest drug and weapons suspension rate in the district, but in the last available year (‘05-‘06) their rate was 117% higher than the state average.

There’s more to this than just complaining. See the move to the middle school system jammed an extra grade into high schools not built for it. Predictably we’ve arrived at the present junction where the same people (teachers’ unions and “progressives”) who pushed for the middle school system are bemoaning the crowding it caused and demanding you pay $50-60 million to build a new high school. That’s the wrong thing to do, and it’s not just about the money.

As the previously mentioned suspension statistics illustrate, 9th graders have simply been ravaged by the move to high school. I’ve seen it firsthand and most teachers will admit as much, but there’s also comparisons to show this resulted from the move to high school and not “society”.

You see there are still a few districts in the state with traditional junior highs (7th-9th). Wisconsin Rapids, Menomenee Falls, and Manitowoc are the three I’ve found. While these districts have slightly lower drug and weapons suspension rates than the state by roughly 16%, there’s a huge difference in their 9th graders who collectively have a 69% lower suspension rate than the state average and a rate almost four times lower than Kenosha’s 9th graders! Yes, they’re ahead academically too.

Now also consider this: Elementary school students in the U.S. compete equally against other countries’ elementary students on standardized tests. When they get to middle school they lose ground, and by the time they're in high school they're testing worse than Bangladesh. Our different school environments obviously matter. So if kids do their best in the elementary format why not keep them there for 6th grade? The same logic applies to keeping 9th graders in junior high with the added behavioral benefits as a huge bonus.

Returning to the original junior high system makes a lot of sense. Firstly students do better both socially and academically that way. Secondly, it would be better to build a few smaller elementary schools than one huge high school. Elementary schools serve as anchors of their neighborhoods and don’t require hugely expensive extras like swimming pools, auditoriums, mega parking lots, athletic facilities, weight rooms, showers (what would Al Gore say about the carbon footprint?) and these days police officers.

Still, in February the teachers’ union will implore you to vote for a new high school to ease overcrowding. However as I’ve previously noted there are fewer students in the youngest four grades than the oldest four, indicating that today’s high school crowding is a temporary bottleneck not a dire emergency.

The obvious motive of the teachers’ union is clearing classroom space for the 4-year old kindergarten Jim Doyle supports and Hillary says she’ll offer nationally. “Progressive” thinkers cheer such developments, as the brave new world they envision requires socializing children their way as young as possible. Hopefully though you recognize that 4 year olds should be allowed to just be kids and that taxpayers shouldn’t pay for what I know firsthand to be indistinguishable from daycare.

So I urge you to vote against the proposed high school and talk seriously about restoring the junior high system. High school has been shown to unnecessarily strip from 9th graders a degree of both innocence and opportunity at a very crucial point in their development. The same is no doubt true for 6th graders shuttled to middle school prematurely. They’re not old enough to miss that those things yet, but as adults with the benefit of hindsight, not to mention now statistics, we have an obligation to reverse that past misstep.