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Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/what-science-tells-us-about-improving-middle-school

What science tells us about improving middle school

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a middle school hallway in Charlottesville, Virginia, a pair of sixth grade girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a lime green settee, creating comic strips that chronicled a year of pandemic schooling.

Using a computer program called Pixton, they built cartoon panels, one of a girl waving goodbye to her teacher, clueless that it would be months before they were back in the classroom, another of two friends standing 6 feet apart from one another, looking sad.

“We have to social distance,” one of the girls, Ashlee, said. Then, as if remembering, she scooted a few inches away from her friend, Anna.

In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades six to eight worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session.

Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation.

Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In the mornings, students work independently on their projects; in the afternoons, they practice math skills and take electives.

“Our day revolves around giving students choice,” said Stephanie Passman, the head teacher. “We want kids to feel a sense of agency and that this is a place where their ideas will be heard.”

Anna (left) and Ashlee (right), sixth graders at Community Lab School, create comics depicting their Covid year. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

As a laboratory for the Albemarle district, Community Lab School is charged with testing new approaches to middle school that could be scaled to the district’s five comprehensive middle schools. The school has been held up as a national model by researchers at MIT and the University of Virginia, which is studying how to better align middle school with the developmental needs of adolescents.

Over the last 20 years, scientists have learned a lot about how the adolescent brain works and what motivates middle schoolers. Yet a lot of their findings aren’t making it into classroom practice. That’s partly because teacher prep programs haven’t kept pace with the research, and partly because overburdened teachers don’t have the time to study and implement it.

Today, some 70 years after reformers launched a movement to make the middle grades more responsive to the needs of early adolescents, too many middle schools continue to operate like mini high schools, on a “cells and bells” model, said Chad Ratliff, the principal of Community Lab School.

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments,” Ratliff said. “A bell rings, and you have three minutes to shuffle to the next thing.”

For many early adolescents — and not a few of their teachers — middle school isn’t about choice and agency, “it’s about surviving,” said Melissa Wantz, a former educator from California, with more than 20 years’ experience.

Now, as schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers , reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive.

“This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

The adolescent brain

Scientists have long known that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and the age of 3 than at any other time in life. But recent advances in brain imaging have revealed that a second spurt occurs during early adolescence, a phase generally defined as spanning ages 11 to 14 .

Though the brain’s physical structures are fully developed by age 6, the connections among them take longer to form. Early adolescence is when much of this wiring takes place. The middle school years are also what scientists call a “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, when the brain is primed to learn from social cues.

While the plasticity of the teenage brain makes it vulnerable to addiction, it also makes it resilient, capable of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity, according to a report recently published by the National Academies of Science. This makes early adolescence “a window of opportunity,” a chance to set students on a solid path for the remainder of their education, said Ronald Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.

Meanwhile, new findings in developmental psychology are shedding a fresh light on what motivates middle schoolers.

READ MORE: Four new studies bolster the case for project-based learning

Adolescents, everyone knows, crave connections to their peers and independence from their parents. But they also care deeply about what adults think. They want to be taken seriously and feel their opinions count. And though they’re often seen as selfish, middle schoolers are driven to contribute to the common good, psychologists say.

“They’re paying attention to the social world and one way to learn about the social world is to do things for others,” said Andrew Fuligni, a professor-in-residence in UCLA’s psychology department. “It’s one way you figure out your role in it.”

So, what does this evolving understanding of early adolescence say about how middle schools should be designed?

First, it suggests that schools should “capitalize on kids’ interest in their peers” through peer-assisted and cooperative learning , said Elise Capella, an associate professor of applied psychology and vice dean of research at New York University. “Activating positive peer influence is really important,” she said.

Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included such practices as interdisciplinary team teaching and cooperative learning. Kids often learn better when they work together, researchers said. Photo by Nichole Dobo/The Hechinger Report

“Kids have deeper cognitive conversations when they’re with their friends than when they’re not,” said Lydia Denworth, a science writer who wrote a book on friendship, in a recent radio interview .

Schools should also take advantage of the “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, setting aside time to teach students the skills and mindsets that will help them succeed in high school and beyond, researchers say .

Yet many schools are doing the opposite of what the research recommends. Though many teachers make use of group learning, they often avoid grouping friends together, fearing they’ll goof off, Denworth said. And middle schools often spend less time on social and emotional learning than elementary schools , sometimes seeing it as a distraction from academics .

Meanwhile, many middle schools have abolished recess, according to Phyllis Fagell, author of the book “ Middle School Matters ”, leaving students with little unstructured time to work on social skills.

“When you think about the science of adolescence, the traditional model of middle school runs exactly counter to what students at that age really need,” said Ratliff.

A developmental “mismatch”

The notion that middle schools are misaligned with the needs and drives of early adolescents is hardly a new one. Efforts to reimagine education for grades six to eight dates back to the 1960s, when an education professor, William Alexander , called for replacing junior highs with middle schools that would cater to the age group.

Alexander’s “Middle School Movement” gained steam in the 1980s, when Jacquelynne Eccles, a research scientist, posited that declines in academic achievement and engagement in middle school were the result of a mismatch between adolescents and their schools — a poor “ stage-environment fit. ”

Propelled by Eccles’ theory, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included interdisciplinary team teaching, cooperative learning, block scheduling and advisory programs.

But while a number of schools adopted at least some of the proposed reforms, many did so only superficially. By the late ‘90s, policymakers’ attention had shifted to early childhood education and the transition to college, leaving middle school as “the proverbial middle child — the neglected, forgotten middle child,” said Fagell.

For many students, the transition from elementary to middle school is a jarring one, Fagell said. Sixth graders go from having one teacher and a single set of classmates to seven or eight teachers and a shifting set of peers.

“At the very point where they most need a sense of belonging, that is exactly when we take them out of school, put them on a bus, and send them to a massive feeder school,” said Fagell.

And at a time when their circadian rhythms are shifting to later sleep and wake times, sixth graders often have to start school earlier than they did in elementary school.

No wonder test scores and engagement slump.

READ MORE: Later school start time gave small boost to grades but big boost to sleep, new study finds

In an effort to recapture some of the “community” feel of an elementary school, many schools have created “advisory” programs, in which students start their day with a homeroom teacher and small group of peers.

Some schools are trying a “teams” approach, dividing grades into smaller groups that work with their own group of instructors. And some are doing away with departmentalization altogether.

At White Oak Middle School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, roughly a third of sixth graders spend half their day with one teacher, who covers four subjects. Peter Crable, the school’s assistant principal until recently, said the approach deepens relationships among students and between students and teachers.

“It can be a lot to ask kids to navigate different dynamics from one class to the next,” said Crable, who is currently a principal intern in another school. When their classmates are held constant, “students have each other’s backs more,” he said.

A study of the program now being used at White Oak, dubbed “Project Success,” found that it had a positive effect on literacy and eliminated the achievement gap between poorer students and their better-off peers.

But scaling the program up has proven difficult, in part because it goes against so many established norms. Most middle school teachers were trained as content-area specialists and see themselves in that role. It can take a dramatic mind shift — and hours of planning — for teachers to adjust to teaching multiple subjects.

Robert Dodd, who came up with Project Success when he was principal of Argyle Middle School, also in Silver Spring, said he’d hoped to expand it district-wide. So far, though, only White Oak has embraced it. (Dodd is now principal of the district’s Walt Whitman High School.)

“Large school systems have a way of snuffing out innovation,” he said.

Even Argyle Middle, where the program started, has pressed pause on Project Success.

“Teachers felt like it was elementary school,” said James Allrich, the school’s current principal. “I found myself forcing them to do it, and it doesn’t work if it’s forced.”

Restoring recess, and other pandemic-era innovations

But Argyle is continuing to experiment, in other ways. This fall, when students were studying online, the district instituted an hour-and-a-half “wellness break” in the middle of the day. Allrich kept it when 300 of the students returned in the spring, rotating them between lunch, recess and “choice time” every 30 minutes.

During one sixth grade recess at the end of the school year, clusters of students played basketball and soccer, while one girl sat quietly under a tree, gazing at a cicada that had landed on her hand. Only three students were scrolling on their phones.

Sixth graders at Argyle Middle, in Silver Spring, Maryland, play basketball during recess. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

“I thought when we got back, students would be all over their cellphones,” said Allrich, over the loud hum of cicadas. “But we see little of that. Kids really want to engage each other in person.”

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College who has found a relationship between the decline of free play and the rise of mental illness in children and teens, wishes more middle schools would bring back recess.

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” he said.

Allrich said he plans to continue recess in the fall, when all 1,000 students are back in person, but acknowledges the scheduling will be tricky.

READ MORE:   How four middle schoolers are navigating the pandemic

Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success, a school reform nonprofit, hopes schools will stick with some of the other changes they made to their schedules during the pandemic, including later start times. “Don’t go back to the old normal,” Pope implored educators during a recent conference . “The old normal wasn’t healthy.”

Prior to the pandemic, barely a fifth of middle schools followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. (Community Lab School started at 10 during the shutdown, but plans to return to a 9:30 a.m. start.)

But if the pandemic ushered in some potentially positive changes to middle schools, it also disrupted some of the key developmental milestones of early adolescence, such as autonomy-building and exploring the world. Stuck at home with their parents and cut off from their peers, teens suffered increased rates of anxiety and depression.

When students return to middle schools en masse this fall, they may need help processing the stress and trauma of the prior year and a half, said author Fagell, who is a counselor in a private school in Washington, D.C.

Fagell suggests schools survey students to find out what they need, or try the “iceberg exercise,” in which they are asked what others don’t see about them, what they keep submerged.

“We’re going to have to dive beneath the surface,” she said.

Deutsche, of Youth-Nex in Virginia, said teachers will play a key role in “helping students trust the world again.”

“Relationships with teachers will be even more important,” she said.

Fortunately, there are more evidence-based social-emotional programs for middle schoolers than there used to be, according to Justina Schlund, senior director of Content and Field Learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. A growing number of states are adopting Pre-K through12 social and emotional learning standards or guidelines and many districts and schools are implementing social and emotional learning throughout all grades, she said.

For many middle school students, a return to in-person schooling means a return to a routine that allows no time for play. But, according to researchers, free time is essential to students’ mental health in early adolescence. “You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” says Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. Photo by Amadou Diallo for The Hechinger Report

At Community Lab School, middle school students typically score above average on measures of emotional well-being and belonging, according to Shereen El Mallah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who tracks the school’s outcomes. Though the Community Lab students experienced an increase in perceived stress during the pandemic, they generally fared better than their peers at demographically similar schools, she said.

Anna and Ashlee, the sixth graders on the settee, said the school’s close-knit community and project-based approach set it apart.

“We’re still learning as much as anyone else, they just make it fun, rather than making us read from textbooks all the time,” Ashlee said.

This story about early adolescents was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .

Kelly Field is a journalist based in Boston who has also reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Nation Aug 10

Do Middle Schools Make Sense?

• Posted September 5, 2012
• By Mary Tamer

New research finds that keeping students in K–8 schools has benefits.

Transitioning from elementary school to middle school can be tough. Assistant Professor Martin West remembers the "shock" of the new environment he encountered at the larger, all-boys school when he entered the seventh grade.

Still, his transition was pretty mild, he says. He was lucky to have been the beneficiary of "outstanding" educators in his private K–6 school located within the beltway of Washington, D.C., and the fact that his new school spanned grades three through 12 meant he would avoid making another transition once he reached high school. It was even during this time that West decided he wanted to be a teacher one day.

Not all students are so fortunate, as West discovered last spring when he released a study that explored the achievement and dropout rates of students enrolled in grades three through 10 in Florida's public schools. The findings? In sum, students who left elementary schools for middle schools in grades six or seven "lose ground in both reading and math compared to their peers who attend K–8 schools," he wrote in "The Middle School Plunge," published in the spring 2012 issue of Education Next . Additionally, Florida students who entered middle school in sixth grade were 1.4 percentage points more likely than their K–8 peers to drop out of high school by 10th grade — a whopping increase of 18 percent.

"Intuitively, I had not expected this to be an important policy lever, but there are a lot of indicators that things are not going well for students in the middle school grades in the United States," says West, who serves as executive editor of Education Next. "If you look at international comparisons, kids in the United States perform better at elementary school than the later grades … so it made sense to look at whether grade configuration influenced this."

West decided to take a closer look after he read a 2010 study out of New York City by two Columbia University researchers that "produced compelling evidence that the transitions to middle schools were harmful for students in that setting." That research found that students entering grades six through eight or seven to eight schools experience a "sharp drop" in achievement versus those attending K–8 schools. West wondered whether the same patterns would be evident elsewhere and, if so, whether the drop in achievement was temporary or persisted into high school.

With a mass of Florida data from his prior research projects, West was able to review nine years of results from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), administered annually to students in third through 10th grade. West says that Florida's size and diversity allowed him to study the effects of middle school transitions for students of all kinds in urban, suburban, and rural districts. And because some Florida students attend schools with grade six through 12 or seven through 12 configurations, he was able to compare the effect of entering a middle school in grade six or seven to that of entering high school in grade nine.

"We do find clear evidence of a drop in achievement to high school, but it is one-quarter the size of the drop we see with the middle school transition," he says. "By grade 10, those students are back up" where they were expected to be before making the transition. "In middle school, the decline persists as long as they remain in a middle school and even into high school; they don't just have a one-time drop. That suggests to me … that while there is a cost with school transitions in general, the middle school transition is particularly tough."

So what does this mean for America's public middle schools? Possibly nothing.

While widespread consensus may be hard to achieve on whether middle schools work for the students enrolled within them, most people can agree on one thing: Regardless of one's zip code, there is a healthy amount of trepidation around middle school and the middle school years.

The question is, is this an indictment of the middle school model or of middle schools themselves?

"Obviously the transition years are very difficult for kids, so whether it's moving from grade five to six or eight to nine, it's a challenging situation," says Joseph Bumsted, Ed.M.'82, assistant principal of South Fort Myers High School in Florida. "The things that make it especially difficult moving from grade five to grade six is the students go from a self-contained, supportive atmosphere where they have one teacher they know … to sixth grade and they are confronted with seven different [teachers'] personalities. They don't know how to handle it."

The Middle School Movement

Trying to figure out how to meet the needs of young people isn't new, says Laura Rogers, Ed.M.'75, Ed.D.'87, a lecturer and codirector of the school psychology program in the Department of Education at Tufts University, and author of F ires in the Middle School Bathroom .

"Our education system has been grappling to meet the need of early adolescents for 100 years," she says.

What's changed is the configuration for how and where that age range is educated.

Until the early 20th century, U.S. schools were mainly K–8 models. By the midcentury, in response to growing enrollment, many places created junior highs which typically started in grade seven and served grades seven through eight or seven through nine. But, as cited on the National Center for Education Statistics website, school districts began moving away from the junior high model in the 1960s and rapidly toward the creation of middle schools starting in grade six or even grade five. These schools either replaced junior highs or were created where there were still K–8 schools. In 1970–71, there were 2,100 middle schools. By the 1998–99 school year, there were 11,200, an increase of more than 430 percent. During the same period, the number of junior high schools declined by nearly 54 percent, from 7,800 in 1970–71 to 3,600 in 1998–99.

Initially, middle schools tended to have a distinctive educational philosophy compared with junior highs. (West says that distinction is less clear today.) They would also, says Rogers, a developmental psychologist by training, "create a bridge" for students, one that would focus on the specific needs and developmental stages of children between the ages of 11 and 13.

In time, however, the effectiveness of the middle school model came into question. A 2001 article "Reinventing the Middle School," published in the Middle School Journal , spoke of the "arrested development" of this once-promising educational model. So too did a January 27, 2007, article in The Boston Globe , which mentioned that several districts around the nation were moving toward the return of K–8 schools. Affirming Rogers' earlier point, the Globe article noted, "Middle schools were conceived in the 1970s and '80s as a nurturing bridge from early elementary grades to high school, but critics say they now more often resemble a swamp, where urban youth sink into educational failure."

As a result of growing evidence, parental preference, and, in the case of urban districts, the continued loss of students in the middle grades to charter schools, West says in his article that several sizeable districts — Baltimore, Charlotte-Mecklenberg (N.C.), and Philadelphia, among others — have transitioned back to more K–8 schools.

Another district, Cambridge (Mass.) Public Schools, is trying an entirely new model: This fall it moved away from its long-held K–8 configuration with the creation of a lower school and an upper school, with sixth- through eighth- graders in the upper school still housed within four of the city's elementary buildings. Superintendent Jeffrey Young, Ed.D.'88, says he proposed the move in December 2010 to level the academic and socioeconomic field of Cambridge students as they enter the middle and high school years.

West says there is no one correct model.

"There are, no doubt, many highly effective middle schools and many ineffective K–8 schools," he says. "Our evidence suggests that, on average, students do worse academically when they attend middle schools than when they attend K–8 schools — and that this is true in urban, suburban, and rural settings. This suggests that it may be harder to create an effective middle school than an effective K–8 school, and that part of the challenge is simply that middle school grade configurations require an additional school transition."

Rogers says it's also important to take into consideration other factors — not just grade configuration — when it comes to achievement and determining "cause and effect" in education. This can be challenging, she admits, especially since other indicators are not always easily measured. But data like that from FCAT may not tell the full story.

"Things can be statistically significant but not educationally relevant," she says. "There are so many other social factors that influence these results. … It is hard to draw conclusions."

West says some middle schools have worked well, such as the KIPP charter school network, which includes 61 schools that house grades five through eight.

"But even many charter organizations like KIPP are now growing back toward elementary schools to provide more continuity of service," he says.

Jonathan Bush, Ed.M.'09, understands the value of that continuity. As a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher in a K–8 charter school in Massachusetts, he points to several factors that he believes contribute to the success of his school, including ongoing communication and collaboration among staff of all grade levels, as well as the development of a curriculum that "ramps up" each year, preventing gaps or holes in nine consistent years of academic preparation.

"I think one of the most compelling reasons to support the K–8 grade configuration is the leadership aspect for students," Bush says. "We put an emphasis on our seventh- and eighth-graders to be leaders. … They are teamed up with the younger kids for tutoring, as one example, and that is a big element of our school. If [you] are not given those leadership roles and you're in the sixth grade in a middle school, you're at the bottom of the totem pole. From the leadership standpoint, the K–8 model is important."

Important, yes, but while West hopes that his research will open the door for districts to take a closer look at more K–8 models, the configuration alone is hardly a magic bullet or panacea for success.

"I happen to agree with the idea that it's good to have K–8 or seven through 12 schools, but this is not based on data," Rogers says. "Small schools, with less than 400 kids, can make a difference, as can having children over a longer period of time. None of these things, alone, makes a difference. The question is, what are the practices that are occurring to make some schools successful?"

Florida by the Numbers

As West shows in his Education Next article, moving to middle school leads to a "substantial drop in student test scores" in the first year of the transition, and the "relative achievement of middle-school students continues to decline in the subsequent years they spend in such schools." Essentially, the longer students stay in a middle school, the lower their achievement. In addition, while the Florida study shows that although the "negative effects of entering a middle school are somewhat smaller outside of urban districts, … they remain substantial even in rural areas."

Among student subgroups, the study also finds that "grade configuration has a larger effect on the math scores of traditionally disadvantaged subgroups than on other students. Black students in particular demonstrate large relative gains in math achievement prior to entering a middle school but then suffer larger drops both at and following the transition."

While some earlier studies questioned the role of grade configuration in school success and student achievement, including the 2008 National Forum "Policy Statement on Grade Configuration" and a 2010 study by EdSource, "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better" in California, "the evidence on academic benefits has become much stronger in the past two years," West says.

"I'm generally sympathetic with this argument, especially to the extent that it points to a set of practices that middle schools could adopt to address their performance problems given that wholesale changes to grade configuration are unlikely to occur overnight," he says. "That said, our evidence indicates that effective school practices are more common in K–8 schools than in middle schools and that the transition to middle school itself is detrimental for students and should be eliminated wherever possible."

Perhaps most importantly, Rogers says the one consistency she has found among K–8 schools is that "kids tend to say they feel safer, so there is less of a Lord of the Flies environment" at a critical stage when they are "navigating through social currents. For many kids, it's distracting."

So whether the reasoning is leadership, safety, or the lessening of transitions that may affect academic achievement, West hopes policymakers will continue to review grade configurations for the benefit of all students.

"The flip side of the point I'm making is that there is not one grade configuration for everyone," says West, "but I think for policymakers, it is too easy to say we know there is a problem with middle schools and we can mitigate those problems. I don't think my research or anyone else's gives us the steps to take to mitigate them."

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Many States Omit Climate Education. These Teachers Are Trying to Slip It In.

Around the United States, middle school science standards have minimal references to climate change and teachers on average spend just a few hours a year teaching it.

Bertha Vazquez teaches seventh-grade science in Miami. Credit... Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times

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By Winston Choi-Schagrin

• Published Nov. 1, 2022 Updated Nov. 10, 2022

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In mid-October, just two weeks after Hurricane Ian struck her state, Bertha Vazquez asked her class of seventh graders to go online and search for information about climate change. Specifically, she tasked them to find sites that cast doubt on its human causes and who paid for them.

It was a sophisticated exercise for the 12-year-olds, Ms. Vazquez said, teaching them to discern climate facts from a mass of online disinformation. But she also thought it an important capstone to the end of two weeks she dedicates to teaching her Miami students about climate change, possible solutions and the barriers to progress.

“I’m really passionate about this issue,” she said. “I have to find a way to sneak it in.”

That’s because in Florida, where Ms. Vazquez has taught for more than 30 years, and where her students are already seeing the dramatic impacts of a warming planet, the words “climate change” do not appear in the state’s middle or elementary school education standards.

Climate change is set to transform where students can live and what jobs they’ll do as adults. And yet, despite being one of the most important issues for young people, it appears only minimally in many state middle school science standards nationwide. Florida does not include the topic and Texas dedicates three bullet points to climate change in its 27 pages of standards. More than 40 states have adopted standards that include just one explicit reference to climate change.

“Middle school is where these kids are starting to get their moral compass and to back that compass up with logic,” said Michael Padilla, a professor emeritus at Clemson University and a former president of the National Science Teachers Association. “So middle school is a classic opportunity to have more focus on climate change.”

For those who do receive formal instruction on climate change, it will most likely happen in middle school science classrooms. But many middle school standards don’t explicitly mention climate change, so it falls largely on teachers and individual school districts to find ways to integrate it into lessons, often working against the dual hurdles of limited time and inadequate support.

Ms. Vazquez makes the state’s requirement that she teach energy transfer an opportunity to talk about how wind turbines work. The ecology requirement becomes a chance to discuss the consequences of deforestation.

“What if the candlemakers had stopped the light bulb? We should be the leaders in solar and wind. I tell my students, ‘Don’t let the candlemakers stop the light bulb.’”

Bertha Vazquez, seventh grade science teacher, Miami.

But her commitment to the subject is not representative of how climate change is taught around the country. Around half of middle school science teachers either don’t cover the subject or spend less than two hours a year on it, according to a survey by the National Center for Science Education.

That’s hardly enough time to teach the essentials, said Glenn Branch, the center’s deputy director. They need to learn, at the very least, the fundamentals of climate science, including the role humans play, the consequences of a changing climate, as well as solutions.

It is clear that people want climate change to be taught. Around 80 percent of American parents think that schools should teach climate change, a sentiment shared by students.

“Kids are demanding more, and wanting more,” said Sarah Ruggiero, a science teacher for the Eugene School District, in Oregon.

Education experts, too, say it is vital that climate change is addressed in a classroom setting. Kids are already learning about it from TV and seeing it in the changing weather around them.

“Students everywhere know it’s a problem,” said Michael Wysession, a professor of earth science at Washington University in St. Louis who has written 30 textbooks and helped write the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of recommendations for science instruction. “The challenge is to keep them from getting depressed about it.”

“One of the things I have students do is find people or corporations or inventions that are making a difference, so they don’t feel defeated. There are so many things out there that people are doing, whether it’s changing your light bulbs at home or you’re getting corporations to change how they do business."

Ana Driggs, sixth grade teacher in Miami.

Over the course of a year, a middle school science class can expect to cover everything from photosynthesis to the electromagnetic spectrum, all in 180 days.

The general topics are dictated by educational standards, the greatest mechanism by which a state can influence what children learn and what teachers spend their time on.

A decade ago, 26 states and several groups representing teachers and scientists unveiled the Next G eneration Science Standards. Since then 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards or similar ones.

But at the middle school level, even the Next Generation standards include only one standard out of about 60 that explicitly mentions climate change. An analysis by researchers at the University of Maryland found that 17 other standards have a connection to climate change, but leave it up to states, school districts and teachers to make those connections in their lessons.

Still, some of the most populous states continue to write their own and a review of those standards found that climate change doesn’t feature as prominently. In some cases, this is because the standards haven’t been updated, Mr. Branch said. States typically review them every 10 years or so, but Florida’s current standards were adopted in 2008.

In other cases, though, climate change’s place in standards is still under debate. Last year, the Texas State Board of Education voted on new science standards. A board member who is also a lawyer for the oil giant Shell succeeded in cutting the requirement that eighth graders learn how to “describe efforts to mitigate climate change.”

Such seemingly minor changes in language are important. They may not make much difference for a teacher who is already invested in teaching about climate change, said Katie Worth, the author of “Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America.” “But it gives a toehold to those who are inclined to climate skepticism.”

In 2020, the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network released a report that graded states on how their standards addressed climate change. Half the states earned a B+ while 10 states, including Florida and Texas, got a D or worse.

A curriculum doesn’t exist until it enters the classroom. And since so many of the middle school Next Generation Science Standards have connections to climate change but don’t explicitly mention them, it can be a major opportunity for teachers.

But researchers have found that many teachers received little climate education themselves.

“The most crucial intervention that we have to make progress on is professional support for teachers,” said Frank Niepold, the senior climate education program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But he warns that this might be the hardest piece of the puzzle to solve.

Some states, including Washington, California, and Maine are turning to teacher training programs.

National science educators have lauded ClimeTime as one of the best efforts. The program receives several million dollars a year in state funding. Since 2018, it has trained 14,000 teachers, or more than a fifth of the teachers in Washington State.

“I tell them, ‘This is your responsibility to your community. You are supposed to leave the land, if not the same, then better than it was for your grandchildren. They buy into it and they love it.’”

Jerry Walther, teacher at Taholah School on the Quinault Indian Nation

When Jerry Walther, a natural resources teacher in Taholah, on the Quinault Indian Nation, trains other teachers about how he teaches climate change, he tells them how he regularly takes his students outside. “Each community has its own climate and culture,” he said. “And that culture is interesting to its students.”

When his students look at the ocean and rivers, the class inevitably begins talking about climate change, about how the water is warming and harmful algal blooms they’ve all witnessed, he said. “For three years we haven’t been able to fish sockeye. How is it affecting our way of life, and how can we ourselves try to change it?”

According to teachers, one of the main challenges is a lack of good supplemental materials.

Brianna Escobar, a sixth grade science teacher in Garland, Texas, uses textbooks that were published in 2015, which are based on standards that are more than a decade old.

“There are kids, I’m sure, whose families are in oil. So I try to frame things as a question. For instance, I ask: After comparing the types of energy resources we use in Texas, which do you think are better for the environment or people? … And they normally come to these ideas by themselves.”

Brianna Escobar, a sixth grade science teacher in Garland, Texas

So it is unsurprising that teachers turn to online materials. But the information they find there may be outdated, inaccurate or simply not suitable for children. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, an organization that provides free climate education materials, found that only 700 of the 30,000 free online materials they reviewed were accurate and suitable for use in schools.

In the world beyond classrooms, thinking about climate change involves much more than merely understanding climate science and the greenhouse effect. It’s about changing our energy systems and preparing for waves of climate migration. It’s also about solutions, coming up with policies to adapt to extreme weather events and decarbonize large parts of our economy.

Which is why climate education is now expanding into areas like the arts and humanities, and social studies. Beginning this year, New Jersey is incorporating some aspect of climate change’s effects, as well as solutions, into its standards for every grade band and in every subject area. National organizations representing English and social studies teachers have called for greater engagement with climate change in their classes.

These developments are a heartening and necessary step forward, Ms. Vazquez said. Teaching about climate change gets at the heart of what school is ultimately for: Helping kids make sense of the world around them, while preparing them for the future.

“This is the topic of the century, and not just because of the potential disasters ahead,” she said. “But because this is the future of the economy.”

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst .

Winston Choi-Schagrin is a reporter covering climate and the environment. More about Winston Choi-Schagrin

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Helping middle school students achieve more

One in five students in the United States will not earn a high school diploma -- and young adolescents who fall behind in school risk never catching up, leading to unemployment, poor health and poverty, research has shown.

But a new University of California, Davis, study of intermediate school students in urban California and New York shows promise for underachievers. Researchers found that early intervention with teachers, training students that intelligence is malleable and learning achievable, caused struggling students to flourish and improve their grades.

"These results were exciting," said the study's lead author, Tenelle Porter, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Human Ecology who studies the psychology of education. "Here we show that we can change people's minds about how education works -- that abilities can improve with effort, and struggling students can see progress."

The study was published June 14 in the journal Psychological Science .

Porter explained that there is often a mindset among children, their families and even teachers that students who are low achievers in middle school may never catch up -- that intelligence levels will not increase much after early adolescence.

The study showed, however, that implementing an educational philosophy called a mindset intervention, which holds that the brain, like a muscle, can be strengthened and trained -- combined with training teachers how to implement the program in classrooms -- raised grades a couple of percentage points over a year, on average. The intervention used in this case was a particular program called "Brainology."

The study was the first of its kind to include the effect teachers have on the technique, which proved to be doubly effective, grade-wise, to delivering the message by computer to each student without teacher involvement. Underachieving students benefited more than students who already had higher grades.

"Students learned, 'wow, I can be smarter,'" Porter said.

The randomized study included nearly 2,000 ethnically diverse sixth and seventh grade students and 50 teachers in 12 schools located in Orange County and New York City during an entire school year prior to COVID-19 closures. The method was delivered alternatively in math, science and English courses to test the results in different subject areas.

"We can be confident this method works in various subjects," Porter said.

In Brainology, used in hundreds of schools throughout the United States and internationally, students learn the foundation of a growth mindset by studying how the brain works and how it grows smarter through effort, learning and use of effective strategies, researchers said.

In the study, teachers were given a prominent role in delivering the intervention. This conveys to students, researchers said, that teachers endorse a growth mindset and believe students can improve. Teachers delivered three of every four lessons in Brainology and led students in actively processing the material. For example, teachers might ask students to identify subjects where they wanted to improve and help them design a plan for maximizing their learning in those subjects, demonstrating the concept of malleable intelligence.

Ongoing support was provided to teachers. They were given a curriculum guide, video-based resources, in-person training, and were taught pedagogical techniques for communicating growth mindsets to students. In addition, staff with expertise in growth mindset and teaching observed Brainology lessons regularly and provided coaching throughout the intervention, researchers said. Teachers' mindset beliefs grew as well, they said.

Study co-authors include senior author Kali Trzesniewski, and Diego Catalan Molina, who are both Department of Human Ecology researchers in the UC Davis SELF lab.

This research was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

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Materials provided by University of California - Davis . Original written by Karen Michele Nikos-Rose. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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• Tenelle Porter, Diego Catalán Molina, Andrei Cimpian, Sylvia Roberts, Afiya Fredericks, Lisa S. Blackwell, Kali Trzesniewski. Growth-Mindset Intervention Delivered by Teachers Boosts Achievement in Early Adolescence . Psychological Science , 2022; 095679762110611 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211061109

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MIDDLE SCHOOL JOURNAL

Middle School Journal, a refereed journal, is an official publication and a Professional Membership benefit of the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE). Published five times per year, the journal offers articles that promote quality middle level education and contribute to an understanding of the educational and developmental needs of youth between the ages of 10 and 15.

Current Issue: Volume 55, Issue 3: Young Adolescent Identity and the ELA Classroom

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Kathleen Brinegar, EdD, Northern Vermont University, Johnson, VT

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Middle and High School Students Need Social-Emotional Learning, Too. Are They Getting It?

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In the secondary school years, students are grappling with some big questions: Who are they? How do they fit into the world? How do they form healthy relationships—in particular romantic ones? These questions grow to a crescendo in high school where students face another daunting query: What will they do with themselves once they graduate?

Even in normal times, the journey through grades 6-12 can be fraught for students, but the pandemic has made it especially complicated as many are struggling with more anxiety, depression, grief, uncertainty, and loneliness. These emotions get in the way of students being able to process and learn new information—just as schools are pushing to make up for lost learning time.

That’s why experts in social-emotional learning and child development say the secondary school years are a crucial time to focus on teaching skills, such as responsible decisionmaking, emotional management, and nurturing relationships.

But the older students get, the less schools have traditionally emphasized social-emotional learning.

“Not that I don’t think that schools think it’s important, it’s just where are you going to find the time and who’s going to teach it when they’re focused on different academic subjects?” said Tia Kim, the vice president of education research and impact at the Committee for Children, a nonprofit that promotes social-emotional learning and student wellbeing.“In our experience, that’s what we’ve heard—where logistically are you going to fit it in?”

It’s harder to find time to include explicit social-emotional lessons in a secondary school schedule, she said, where students are changing classes and teachers every hour. When schools do carve out the space to teach social and emotional skills, it is often during a specific class period such as advisory or English.

There is also more emphasis—or pressure—in secondary schools to focus on academics, said Kim, leaving educators to feel like they don’t have the time to teach social and emotional skills. And finally, SEL curricula are often targeted more to primary school-age children.

“Most SEL programs are curriculum based, lesson based,” she said. “I think that can go over pretty well when you’re talking about elementary school kids, and I think for the most part you can get away with it in middle school. But I think as you get older developmentally, that’s just not engaging .”

Previous polling by Education Week has found that schools tended to emphasize social-emotional learning much more in the early grades and less so as students went on to middle school and high school.

Those attitudes may be beginning to shift.

New polling from the EdWeek Research Center in September finds that 53 percent of district leaders say that a lot of focus is placed on social-emotional learning for students in grades 9-12, and 56 percent said the same for grades 6-8. Those figures are nearly on par with the 58 percent of district leaders who indicated a lot of focus was placed on SEL for grades 1-3.

In early 2020, when Education Week last put this question to district leaders, 38 percent said schools in their district placed a lot of emphasis on social and emotional learning in middle school and 31 percent said the same for high school.

COVID-19 has brought with it an overall rise in interest among educators and policymakers in investing more in building students’ social and emotional skills to better equip them to handle the pandemic’s unique challenges.

A majority of district leaders planned to spend federal COVID-19 relief aid on social and emotional learning and supports, the most cited use in an April survey by Education Week. At the same time, district leaders reported that social, collaboration, and communication skills were among the greatest learning-loss challenges during the pandemic.

Teenagers voice unmet needs, mixed feelings

So, from the student’s perspective, how are schools doing when it comes to teaching social and emotional skills?

The EdWeek Research Center put several questions to a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students at the beginning of this school year to get at whether students felt they were being taught important social and emotional skills, and whether their schools provided the support students needed to build relationships and sort out their identities. The survey was conducted online from Aug. 30 to Sept. 7.

The feedback was mixed.

A little under a third of students said their school had not provided them with the help or support they feel they needed over the course of the pandemic to improve on a range of skills central to social and emotional learning, such as making responsible decisions, establishing positive relationships, and managing emotions.

Many students indicated they could use more guidance in answering some of the big questions around identity . When asked if adults at their school were helping them figure out their identity—who they are, what they want to be, where they belong, and what they believe—a little less than a quarter of students said they completely agreed with the statement. Nearly half said they partly agreed.

Teachers, on the other hand, had a more positive evaluation of the situation, with 40 percent saying they completely agreed that adults in their school helped students figure out their identities.

Students are also craving more guidance on how to develop healthy relationships and learn more about gender and sexual identity in their sex education programs. A little over a quarter of students who had already taken sex education said those topics had not been covered and they would like to learn about them.

Of students who haven’t had sex education yet, 58 percent said they wanted to learn more about healthy relationships, which was the most popular topic, and 28 percent said they wanted to learn about gender and sexual identity.

Large shares of students indicated they at least feel somewhat respected by adults in their school and are given at least some say in how their school is run.

Thirty-six percent completely agreed and 43 percent partly agreed that adults in their school take them seriously and they don’t sound “preachy” or like they’re looking down on students. Again, when the same question was put to educators in a separate survey, findings were a bit rosier.

Only 8 percent of students said they were not given any opportunities to take on leadership and decision-making roles in their schools.

Finally, majorities of students and teachers agreed that students feel like they can ask teachers for help when they need it, and that students are comfortable talking with other students and teachers in their school about how they’re feeling.

Social-emotional skills for the digital age

There is no question that the pandemic has been hard on students’ social and emotional well-being.

Forty-four percent of middle and high school students reported in Education Week’s survey that their level of social anxiety and loneliness has gone up.

Teachers reported in a January EdWeek survey that their students struggled more with procrastination and class participation than they did a year before and that many of their students were more often distracted by anxieties, worries, and fears during class.

But things were hard for adolescents and teens even before the pandemic, said R. Keeth Matheny, a former high school teacher in Austin, Texas, who developed a popular SEL program for his school.

He said the demands on teens’ and tweens’ social and emotional skills have changed drastically from when he and many other educators were young—in large part because of social media.

“If you made a mistake, it was a mistake, and people didn’t know and define you for the next 20 years based on that,” Matheny said. “Being a teenager today has lots of big challenges with it—not just the emotional part of being a teenager and impulsivity of being a teenager. When you are a teen, you do make mistakes and say and do things that you then later think back on and go ‘I can’t believe I did that.’ But all of the sudden now, those things are recorded for posterity.”

We’re seeing our teenagers and tweenagers have significant mental health challenges.

The adolescent years are a time when students are pushing boundaries and trying to work out who they are, he said, and they need more guidance on how to make responsible decisions and grow into their identity.

Matheny now runs SEL Launch Pad, a consultancy that helps schools institute SEL programs. Because of his experience with high school students, many of his clients include secondary schools.

“While I do believe that work at younger grades can be very impactful, … I also think the teenage years are very tumultuous with big emotions and novel situations and extreme social pressure,” he said. “We’re seeing our teenagers and tweenagers have significant mental health challenges. And this work can be such a powerful support in the teenage years, whether we’re talking about emotional management or self-advocacy or self-awareness or relationship skills.”

Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center’s work.

Coverage of social and emotional learning is supported in part by a grant from The Allstate Foundation, at AllstateFoundation.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

A version of this article appeared in the October 13, 2021 edition of Education Week as Older Students Need Social-Emotional Learning, Too.

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• Published: 15 June 2023

A meta-analytic investigation of the impact of middle school STEM education: where are all the students of color?

• Danielle R. Thomas   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-3252 1   na1 &
• Karen H. Larwin 2   na1  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  10 , Article number:  43 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education initiatives are becoming an increasingly popular approach to narrow the opportunity gap among underrepresented minority (i.e., Black, Hispanic, and first-generation) students. However, there are limited studies on the impact of exposure to integrated STEM education on academic achievement and an even lesser amount on performance among underrepresented minority (URM) groups. Students exposed to STEM programming in middle school are more likely to pursue a STEM field in college or a STEM-related career. However, despite increases in middle school STEM programming initiatives, STEM college graduation rates have declined, particularly among URM populations. This meta-analysis aims to determine the effectiveness of STEM education in middle school, focusing on URM students.

A total of 20 studies containing 45 independent samples met the study criteria. The studies included were published from January 1, 2011 to May 1, 2022, and identified from the following academic databases: ERIC, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and SCOPUS. Integrated STEM programming was most impactful when: engineering was incorporated into science courses and at full STEM integration, occurring over one academic year ( d  = 0.89) and occurring in 8th grade ( d  = 1.55). Overall, the effect size estimate demonstrated heterogeneity, with a large positive significant effect across the studies (d  = 0.558, 95% CI [0.514–0.603], p  < 0.001), indicating a significant impact on student achievement. The most notable finding was the lack of empirical studies involving URM groups, with only one effect size estimate reported for Black students and other minority groups and 40 effect size estimates for non-minority groups revealing a non-significant difference in effect size estimates.

Conclusions

Students benefit from STEM program participation, with the average STEM student outperforming approximately 70% of their same-age, same-grade peers not participating in STEM programming. In particular, URM students benefit even more from quality integrated STEM education initiatives, given one caveat—students must be given the opportunity. We conclude that the issue is not that URM students are not academically benefiting from middle school integrated STEM education programs, based on the available research—they are merely not participating. We highlight the need and suggest interventions for providing collaborative and focused attention on the societal and cultural factors impacting URM student participation and retention in integrated STEM education programs.

Introduction

STEM education is becoming increasingly popular in public education as a way of gaining student interest in STEM subjects, improving technological skills, and preparing students for future careers (Bryan & Guzey, 2020 ; Moore et al., 2020 ). According to the National Middle School Association, STEM education effectively engages teachers and students in active, purposeful learning—a crucial component of educating young minds (Lounsbury, 2010 ). The argument among researchers is not whether integrated STEM education is effective at the elementary, middle, or high school level but rather at which grade level is the introduction of STEM practices the most impactful on student achievement and, subsequently, future success (Bybee, 2010 ). The elementary and high school years have positive effects on shaping students’ perceptions of their learning and future career choices (Bryan & Guzey, 2020 ). However, the middle school years demonstrate an optimal time to implement STEM education initiatives and programs (Christensen et al., 2015 ; Lesseig et al., 2017 ). Students interested in STEM in middle school are more likely to pursue a STEM field in college (Bryan & Guzey, 2020 ; Maltese et al., 2014 ). However, despite increases in middle school STEM programming, diversity among STEM college graduates appears stagnant (Premraj et al., 2021 ). There has been dramatic growth in the number of STEM graduates from U.S. colleges in the past decade. However, only 7 percent of STEM bachelor’s degrees are earned from Black students and 12 percent earned from Hispanic students, given their share of all bachelor’s degrees at 10 and 15 percent, respectively (Pew Research Center, 2021 ). Underrepresented minority (URM) groups (i.e., Black, Hispanic, and first-generation students) exhibit lower enrollment and graduation rates in STEM fields (Pew Research Center, 2021 ; Premraj et al., 2021 ). Interestingly, women make up exactly half of those employed in STEM jobs. However, they are overrepresented among health-related jobs (i.e., nursing) and vastly underrepresented in technical careers making up nearly 15 percent of engineers and architects and 25 percent of jobs involving computer science (Pew Research Center, 2021 ). Over 19 million U.S. workers are employed in STEM occupations, with two-thirds made up of White workers and the remaining third mostly composed of Asian (13%), Black (9%), and Hispanic (8%), respectively. In response to the lower proportion of students of color representing STEM careers, schools are attempting to expose students to STEM initiatives and programs to spark career interest and retain students in STEM fields, maintaining students in the pipeline. STEM careers and jobs are defined broadly as involving science, technology, engineering, and math. STEM careers are identified solely of 74 defined occupations in the sciences (i.e., life, Earth, physical), engineering and architecture, computers and math, and health and healthcare-related occupations (Pew Research Center, 2021 ).

The National Middle School Association (Lounsbury, 2010 ) recommends integrated STEM curriculum and instruction at the middle school level. At the middle school level, it offers engaging and holistic instruction for all learners with studies finding the integration of mathematics and science having a positive influence on student’s attitudes toward school, their motivation to learn, and academic performance. Middle school is a pivotal time for cultivating student’s interest and preparedness for STEM careers (Moreno et al., 2016 ) and an impressionable time for students as their viewpoints on STEM education and self-efficacy with respect to math and science are greatly impacted by their environment and access to learning opportunities (Blotnicky et al., 2018 ).

Recently, Le Thi Thu et al. ( 2021 ) published a two-decade review monitoring the development of middle school STEM education from 2000 to 2020. The review of 272 academic journal articles determined a boom in quantitative analyses on the effectiveness of STEM education in the last five years. Although interest in providing and assessing high-quality STEM education in the middle years has become increasingly popular, research interests are remarkably diverse, focusing on many issues from gender studies, technology and engineering education, and curriculum. The proposed meta-analysis focuses on the impact of STEM programming on middle school academic achievement. In addition to determining the consistency of treatment effects of STEM education, this work unveils the lack of research on the participation of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM education programs. The lack of middle school students engaging in STEM education programs contributes to the deficiency of URM students enrolling in STEM majors in college—further depleting not only the number of students but the diversity of students to fuel the STEM pipeline.

Defining integrated STEM education

Currently, there is no single definition encompassing integrated STEM education outside of the interdisciplinary instruction of science, technology, engineering, and math (Moore et al., 2020 ). In response to the lack of cohesive understanding of integrated STEM education among educators and policy-making stakeholders, several researchers have operationalized a conceptual framework defining key concepts and learning theories surrounding integrated STEM education (Bryan & Guzey, 2020 ; Kelley & Knowles, 2016 ; Moore et al., 2020 ; Roehrig et al., 2021 ). Due to the ambiguity in defining STEM education, the term integrated STEM education was created to incorporate all disciplines as a whole (Giasi, 2018 ) with researchers lacking a concise definition (Bryan & Guzey, 2020 ). Other terms used to describe STEM integration include: interdisciplinary , cross-disciplinary , connected , fused , or transdisciplinary with no definitive boundaries separating each discipline (Honey et al., 2014 ; Morrison, 2006 ). Recently, the Handbook of STEM Education was published, reviewing 109 sources providing definitions and conceptual frameworks of integrated STEM education (Moore et al., 2020 ). Researchers narrowed down six common themes pertinent to the description of integrated STEM education, listed below:

STEM integration:

should be centered around real-world problems,

applies concepts, principles, and ideas across disciplines,

frequently uses student-centered learning approaches and peer collaboration,

requires at least two disciplines,

can exist on a wide continuum from little (or no) to full integration,

often contains active learning, student-centered, problem- and project-based teaching pedagogies (Moore et al., 2020 ).

Studies used within this meta-analysis contain intentional subject integration applying many, if not all, of the common themes listed above. For example, some studies satisfied the themes defining integrated STEM education but focused primarily on engineering and technology integration, with other disciplines playing varying minor roles (i.e., StEM and STeM). It is important to note that studies analyzing the incorporation of arts into STEM integration, such as STEAM, were not included in this meta-analysis due to a lack of studies meeting the study criteria and containing a quantitative measure of student achievement.

Levels of STEM integration

There are several integrative approaches to incorporating STEM subjects reported and explained in the literature (see Becker & Park, 2011 ). Full integration, represented by the notation S-T-E-M, involves incorporating aspects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into all coursework using the previously defined components of STEM integration. Other integrative approaches representative of research articles in this meta-analysis include: S-E defined as an engineering-based STEM curriculum taught in science courses (i.e., Moreno et al., 2016 ), S-M defined as science and math concepts in an integrated STEM course or STEM concepts embedded in math and science courses (i.e., Kutch, 2011 ), S-E-M described as an engineering design-based curriculum integrated into science and math courses (i.e., Harlan et al., 2014 ), S described as STEM concepts embedded in science courses. The latter has varied descriptions with researchers defining S integration as: STEM-related lessons in science courses (Gazibeyoglu & Aydin, 2019 ), engineering-based science curriculum with technology, engineering, and math imbedded in science courses (Selcen Guzey et al., 2017 ), and a STEM approach based on a 5E model in science courses (i.e., Izgi & Kalayci, 2020 ). The 5E learning model, based on constructivist theory, and created by Bybee, applies stages of experimentation to students’ learning (i.e., engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation) (Bybee et al., 2006 ) and was used in several international studies in this meta-analysis.

Measures of academic achievement

State standardized tests are the gold standard for measuring academic achievement as they provide a universal standard assessing the same constructs across the state. In addition, regarding college acceptance, state standardized tests provide universities with a common standard to evaluate individual student achievement. Math and science achievement assessments were used in the meta-analyses as both subjects are predictors of student academic achievement and interest in STEM fields (Blotnicky et al., 2018 ). Standardized assessments are not without criticism. Because they are normed based on most students, they can create cultural bias among URM groups (Kim & Zabelina, 2015 ). Although not a perfect measure for quantifying student knowledge base, they provide the most readily available and consistent measure for determining student academic achievement across schools and states (Wiliam, 2010 ). Researchers and critics alike are working on methods of bias reduction and test optimization (Kim & Zabelina, 2015 ). Adherence to the study selection criteria (i.e., containing both independent and control comparison groups, pretest–posttest design) lessens testing bias and ensures testing outcomes are reflective of the learning process.

The majority of studies used in this meta-analysis measured academic achievement using at least one learning outcome. State standardized test scores were preferred, but common assessment measures were allowed when having both an independent comparison group and pretest–posttest design, given they met all other selection criteria.

Conceptual framework

We expand on the conceptual framework developed by Kelley and Knowles ( 2016 ), which provides much-needed clarification into the operationalization and blending learning theories comprising integrated STEM education. Kelley and Knowles ( 2016 ) conceptualize the cognitive “load” of “situated STEM learning” by illustrating a pulley system, connecting the four common practices of scientific inquiry, technological literacy, mathematical thinking, and engineering design (p. 4). This conceptual framework provides insight to the relationship between all four STEM domains and the importance of the community of practice, which acts as a rope carrying the load of providing integrated STEM education. The community of practice, or group of practitioners, educators, students, and members of the community, fuel the mechanical pulley by roping social discourse and shared practices into the providing of STEM education (Kelley & Knowles, 2016 ). Designed for secondary education, and particularly for high school, this conceptual framework translates appropriately to middle school and encapsulates the complexity and integrity of the coordinated relationship between all four STEM domains. Kelley and Knowles ( 2016 ) emphasize that although the mental model illustrates a pulley system consisting of all four STEM subjects, this does not mean all domains must occur within every STEM learning experience.

We combine the conceptual framework of Kelley and Knowles ( 2016 ) and the individual efforts of describing different variations of STEM integration (i.e., S-E-M, S-M, S-T-E-M) from the following: Becker & Park, 2011 ; Gazibeyoglu & Aydin, 2019 ; Harlan et al., 2014 ; Izgi & Kalayci, 2020 ; Kutch, 2011 ; Moreno et al., 2016 ; Selcen Guzey et al., 2017 . Figure  1 illustrates the conceptual framework of this meta-analytical study. Integrated STEM education is the independent variable and student achievement is the dependent variable, with moderators illustrated. Integrated STEM education is described aligning with the description of Kelley and Knowles’ ( 2016 ) awareness and understanding of the relationship across domains connected by the community of practice. The moderator variable, level of STEM integration is added to provide more granular information into the description of STEM implementation across studies included in this meta-analysis and their particular student outcomes. Similar to Kelley and Knowles ( 2016 ), we affirm that not all STEM learning experiences that comprise integrated STEM education programs incorporate the four domains of STEM. Level of STEM integration as a moderator variable is intended to provide insight into the particular impact of the different levels of integration on student achievement. The other moderator variables of dosage , grade level , and student demographics are commonly provided in studies reporting student outcome measures as a function of participation in integrated STEM education (e.g., Becker & Park, 2011 ; Kazu & Yalcin, 2021 ).

Peripheral moderators, such as the year of study publication, assessment type, assessment subject, and other information used to measure student outcomes are not direct moderators.

Related work

Past research has determined the impact of STEM education policies and initiatives on student achievement having varying degrees of success (Dugger, 2010 ; Gonzalez & Kuenzi, 2012 ; Snyder, 2018 ; White, 2014 ). Although Gonzalez and Kuenzi ( 2012 ) report there is no single statistic that can fully quantify the success of STEM education on a national, state, or local level this study attempted to gain insight into the impact of STEM education on middle school student achievement. In a 2021 meta-analysis comprising 56 quantitative studies on the effect of STEM education on academic performance by education level (i.e., primary, secondary, high school, university), researchers determined large effect sizes across grade bands (i.e., primary level; g  = 1.055). However, no statistical significance was found across education levels (Kazu & Kurtoglu Yalcin, 2021 ). In addition, short STEM program intervention (2–5 weeks) produced the largest effect size on student achievements, further supporting the importance of short-term or extracurricular STEM initiatives (Kazu & Kurtoglu Yalcin, 2021 ).

Several research studies have sought to determine the impact of STEM integration and programming on student achievement, sparking the interest in creating a meta-analysis of recent research particularly on math and science achievement. First, Wade-Shepard (2016) investigated the effect of the middle school STEM curriculum on both science and math achievement scores. The research was conducted among four schools of seventh and eighth grade students in Tennessee using the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). The study found a significant, strong, and positive correlation between math and science test scores of students participating in STEM classes compared to those that were not taking STEM classes (Wade-Shepard, 2016 ). Hansen and Gonzalez ( 2014 ) investigated the relationships between STEM learning principles, such as project-based learning (PBL) and student achievement in math and science and found specific STEM practices were associated with performance gains in those subjects. For example, projects and science experiments were associated with higher scores in science, and using calculators, computers, and listening and taking notes were associated with higher scores in math.

In addition, these significant and positive correlations were also found among racial minorities (Hansen & Gonzalez, 2014 ). Last, Han et al. ( 2015 ) analyzed both STEM curriculum and project-based learning (PBL) strategies on student mathematics performance disaggregated by low, middle, and high achieving students to determine the degree of effect as a function of student achievement level (Han et al., 2015 ). Students in three Texas high schools participated in STEM project-based learning activities every 6 weeks over the course of 3 years. Han et al. ( 2015 ) concluded lower-achieving students showed a statistically significant higher rate of growth on math scores compared to middle and high performing students over three years. They also found student race and socioeconomic status were strong predictors of student academic achievement with low-income students exhibiting negative impacts due to participation in STEM-related PBL programs after the first year of implementation. Han et al. ( 2015 ) hypothesize the lack of learning gain among low-income students was due to unequal access to PBL materials. Analysis of student ethnicity found mixed results with Hispanic students benefiting more than Black students, hypothesized to be because of additional mathematical terminology exposure and opportunities for peer-to-peer and student–teacher relationship building. Both URM populations (i.e., low-income students and Black students) displayed a lack of learning gain in a STEM PBL environment having had unequal access and opportunity (Han et al., 2015 ), hence lack of academic achievement gains. Bracey ( 2013 ) states that this is primarily due to the fact that many URM students attend subpar schools that focus on prescriptive academic remediation, which prevents access to the type of creative, inquiry-based learning that is foundational to STEM achievement. However, when conditions are optimal as suggested by Han et al. ( 2015 ), URM students can succeed in STEM education programs.

This meta-analysis is intended to combine the results of many studies to provide a more consistent estimate of the impact of integrated STEM programming on middle school student achievement. In addition, the review and exhaustion of literature will also gain perspective on the relative amount of research being conducted on URM groups participating in STEM education programs.

Underrepresented minority (URM) groups

The underrepresentation of minorities in the STEM workforce is a direct byproduct of the ever-present achievement gaps evident among minority youth in kindergarten through high school graduation (Gonzalez & Kuenzi, 2012 ). Gonzalez and Kuenzi ( 2012 ) comment that researchers have identified dozens of variables responsible for the achievement gap in STEM-related fields among minority populations, such as socioeconomic status (SES), “a lack of resources (underfunding), less qualified teachers at schools that serve minority students, teachers’ low expectations, stereotype threat, and racial oppression” (p. 24). The many factors responsible for the achievement gap in STEM education among minorities is a complex, multi-faceted issue fueling much of the research within this study. Milner ( 2020 ) refers to the achievement gap as an opportunity gap. In essence, many students are not succeeding due to not being given the opportunity to have a robust learning experience. In the development of the Opportunity Gap Framework, he references that in most cases, URM youth have not been provided the opportunity to learn and have positive experiences with school. By addressing the opportunity gaps that often exist for educators and students, teachers become reflective on the practices, policies, and experiences that directly impact student learning outcomes.

There are many proposed reasons for the lack of students from URM backgrounds enrolling in STEM college majors. In addition, among a small number of URM students enrolled in STEM-fields there is a lower rate of college completion among Black, LatinX, and Native American students (Chen, 2013 ; Williams et al., 2019 ). Williams et al. ( 2019 ) emphasizes the phenomenon is not due to a lack of STEM career interest among URM students. On the contrary, URM students are the same or, perhaps, more likely than White students to choose a STEM major upon entering college (Gelbgiser & Alon, 2016 ; O’Brien et al., 2015 ). There are several hypothesized reasons for low retention among URM students in STEM-related majors (i.e., racial phenotypic stereotyping). Historically, common academic interventions, such as student support, mentoring, and tutoring sessions were prescribed for URM students to combat student attrition. However, the foundation of the problem is not academic in nature but social (Williams et al., 2019 ; Van Sickle et al., 2020 ). Researchers recommend a social context approach through addressing stereotypic bias among peers, academic advisors, and professors (Williams et al., 2019 ). This is supported by McGee ( 2021 ), who describes the STEM college experience for Black, Indigenous, and Lantinx students as “chilly waters”. She posits that URM students often experience isolation, racial stereotyping, and impostor syndrome, all hindering success and decreasing retention in STEM fields. Further, URM STEM students at the university level often experience psychological and physical stress from harsh conditions that manifest themselves in higher drop-out rates.

Historically marginalized students, such as students in URM groups, often lack access to quality instructional materials and services and experience lesser opportunities for learning—thus, creating an opportunity gap (Chine et al., 2022 ; Schaldenbrand, 2021 ). The discrepancy in the number of learning opportunities between marginalized and non-marginalized students in education subsequently lowers student achievement. Researchers propose that to combat the opportunity gap in education, society must attend to other gaps, such as the teacher quality gap, school funding gap, digital divide gap, health care gap, quality child-care gap—and the list goes on (Irvine, 2010 ; Milner, 2020 ). Shirley Malcom, director of STEM Equity Achievement Change, an initiative of the American Advancement of Science, states “If you’re Black, you may have the drive, you may have the passion, but you also have deficiencies that were born of differential opportunities”, oftentimes, the focus is on “fixing the student rather than fixing the system” (Suran, 2021 , p. 2). This is further supported by Bracey ( 2013 ), who contends that the behaviorist-reductionist teaching and learning model also contributes to the lack of interest and achievement of students in STEM areas. Many societal and cultural factors contribute to the opportunity gap evident among URM students. The introduction of STEM education and components of STEM integration in the early years and into middle school is associated with increased student interest in STEM fields into college and beyond. However, little research exists attesting to the impact of such programming on URM students, in particular during their formative education years.

Impact of STEM education by grade level

There are many misconceptions surrounding the best time to introduce STEM education principles with a common fallacy being, “The belief that ‘real’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning doesn’t occur until children are older, and that exposure to STEM concepts in early childhood is only about laying a foundation for the serious learning that takes place later” (McClure, 2017 , p. 84). The belief that authentic STEM education does not occur until later years is a hot topic among researchers. What is the best time to introduce integrated STEM education models into students' formal education?

Many researchers argue that early STEM programming, particularly from birth to 8 years old, is just as important as early literacy in the practice of critical thinking, persistence, and systematic experimentation. Being naturally born scientists, students are “never too young for STEM” with even the youngest learners able to think critically, conduct experiments and investigations, and make sense of the world around them (McClure, 2017 , p. 84). A 2-year research analysis among preschoolers determined these young learners can carry out scientific practices using the scientific method matching that of high schools strengthening the belief that early STEM foundations are just as important as early literacy, with both emerging skills predicting future academic achievement (McClure, 2017 ). Early STEM literacy assists young students with developing attitudes toward STEM education and the exploration of future STEM-based careers (McClure et al., 2017 ; Christensen et al., 2015 ).

Adversely, some researchers and experts providing integrated STEM education feel high school is a particularly impactful time to introduce STEM learning models, with many current STEM initiatives beginning at the high school level (Barakos et al., 2012 ). The North Carolina New Schools Project has redesigned over one hundred high schools with the goal of every student graduating “ready for college, a career, and life” (Barakos et al., 2012 , p. 5). Most of these schools specifically aim to teach high school students using integrated STEM instruction, project-based learning, real-life issues, and collaboration. These researchers view STEM-focused high schools as the most effective route to generating students’ interests in STEM fields and preparing them for STEM-related careers (Barakos et al., 2012 ). Although students make a career- and higher education-based decisions in high school, perhaps schools are missing an important opportunity to spark students’ interest in STEM fields with lesser STEM programming options during middle school?

There are many reasons to introduce and support STEM programming and initiatives at the middle school level (approximately grades 5–8). With two-thirds of U.S. students failing to achieve proficiency in both math and science by the 8th grade (NAEP, 2019 ), the lack of knowledge hinders students and prevents future interest in STEM and technical careers. Cohen ( 2020 ) states students’ academic interest tends to wane in the middle school years with many students who enjoy school losing interest in traditional schooling. Integrated STEM education revives many students' interest in school subjects. Second, many students begin to form career aspirations in their middle school years. The project-based learning methods and real-life applications involved in integrated STEM education assist students with future career exploration. Cohen ( 2020 ) states, “Exposure to STEM careers during this time triggers students to seriously consider jobs in engineering, technology, manufacturing, biology, etc.” (website). Third, integrated STEM education often facilitates hands-on learning, which wanes in the middle school years with an increase in long lectures and many subjects taught in isolation. Fourth, STEM training teaches problem-solving principles which is particularly important in middle school as subjects begin to be taught in isolation. Lastly, integrated STEM education assists with closing the gender gap by exposing STEM principles to girls and boys before making definitive decisions regarding future careers (Cohen, 2020 ).

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) have recently popped up in states across the country, such as California, Massachusetts, Texas, and Ohio. These exclusive STEM-focused secondary schools accept students based on interest and not on achievement or aptitude (Spillane et al., 2016 ). Although the practice of choosing students based on STEM interests is a powerful method of recruiting invested students it can further decrease the number of girls and underrepresented populations. For this reason, many ISHSs intentionally recruit a larger proportion of minority groups often underrepresented in other STEM-related high schools. ISHSs are promising to enrich student STEM understanding, boost self-confidence in STEM subjects, and increase awareness in STEM college majors and careers (Lynch et al., 2017 ; Spillane et al., 2016 ).

Purpose and research questions

The aim of the meta-analysis is to determine the impact of STEM education programs and initiatives on academic achievement compared to students in a traditional setting not exposed to STEM interventions. Integrated STEM education is becoming an increasingly popular option to improve student learning with limited studies on the benefits of STEM education concerning academic achievement and a lack of underrepresented minority (URM) groups participating in middle school STEM education and going into college STEM fields. This meta-analysis aims to determine the effectiveness of STEM education in middle school and highlights recent research:

What moderators (i.e., demographics, level of STEM integration, grade levels, etc.) are included in the research investigating the effect of STEM education programs on student’s achievement?

What moderators (i.e., demographics, level of STEM integration, grade levels, etc.) or assessment types (i.e., math or science) demonstrate a larger effect of STEM programming on a student's academic achievement?

What differences exist in academic achievement between students participating in STEM education programs compared to students participating in a traditional setting?

What differences exist in academic achievement between underrepresented minority (URM) students or marginalized students participating in STEM programming compared to similar students in a traditional setting?

Meta-analysis was first invented by Glass ( 1976 ) and is a secondary analysis method used to answer research questions with improved statistical analysis. By integrating the quantitative results and effect sizes of past empirical studies, researchers can get a clearer picture of the research being studied (Glass, 1976 ). For purposes of this meta-analysis a systematic review of the literature was conducted using both primary and secondary databases to identify studies that met all study selection criteria.

Study selection criteria

A meta-analysis was conducted with the following criteria for studies to be included:

Studies had to use a randomized, true experimental design or quasi-experimental design.

Studies had to be empirical investigations of the effects of STEM programming and curriculum on student learning. Secondary data analyses, other meta-analyses, and literature reviews were excluded.

Studies had to be published within the reporting window from January 1, 2011 to May 1, 2022, and they had to be published in English.

Studies had to concentrate on students in any or all grades 5–8 and include students of all performance levels (e.g., high, middle, and low achieving students). Studies focusing on only a specific subgroup (e.g., students with disabilities) were excluded.

Studies had to contain an independent control or comparison group. Studies without a comparison group or containing one treatment group pretest–posttest design were excluded.

Studies had to quantify or measure academic achievement using at least one learning outcome. State standardized test scores were preferred but common assessment measures were allowed when having both an independent comparison group and pretest–posttest design.

Studies had to have at least 17 students in both the treatment and control group. Studies with sample sizes smaller than 17 students were excluded.

Studies had to include at least the minimum information and data necessary to estimate or calculate effect sizes.

Study search

The studies included in the meta-analysis were published from January 1, 2011 to May 1, 2022. Researchers searched the following academic databases: SCOPUS, ERIC, Google Scholar, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. One of the main research databases, SCOPUS, was used to search the terms “student achievement” and “STEM education” within the abstract, title, or author-specified keywords. Of the 49 articles found, researchers manually determined if each article met the study criteria. Upon manual selection, only two articles met the study criteria. The second main database, ERIC, was used with the same search criteria and displayed 290 articles with 5 of those articles meeting study search criteria upon hand-matching. The secondary scholarly database, Google Scholar, yielded 150 results meeting the search criteria upon searching “STEM education”, “student achievement”, “quantitative”, and “middle school” within the title using the “OR” Boolean operator and manually selecting 11 articles meeting the search criteria. Lastly, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses search found article results when filtering using the same terms as SCOPUS and ERIC, isolating 20 articles with four that met all criteria. All keywords were searched using a combination of Boolean operators (AND, OR). A total of 22 studies were found with 20 meeting all study criteria and containing 45 independent samples. Figure  2 displays the data collection process highlighting the search, screening, and selection of qualified articles meeting the eight criteria requirements.

PRISMA flow diagram of data collection

Effect size calculation

Meta-analysis is used to synthesize effect size estimates across several studies, with primary and secondary data. Effect size estimates measure the impact of treatment, such as integrated STEM education programming. Effect size estimates are standardized values, making it possible to compare the direction and magnitude of the variables of interest. There are several methods for calculating effect sizes (Glass et al., 1981 ; Hedges & Olkin, 1985 ; Hunter & Schmidt, 2004 ; Rosenthal, 1991 ; Wolf, 1986 ). For this meta-analytic study, all statistics from each study will be converted to Hedges’ d. Hedges d statistic is defined as the difference between the means of the experimental and control groups divided by the inter-group standard deviation. Means and standard deviations were available in order to calculate effect size measures for several of the studies included in the current investigation. Effect size measures were calculated with means and standard deviations using the formula from Johnson ( 1989 ):

considering:

where M E is the mean for the experimental group, M C is the mean for the control group, n E is the number of participants in the experimental group, n C is the number of participants in the control group , s E is the standard deviation of the experimental group, and s C is the standard deviation of the control group. When means and standard deviations were not available, the effects sizes were calculated using other formulas for calculating effect size. In this meta-analysis, the effect size estimate for studies providing an F statistic was calculated using the following formula:

The effect size estimate for studies providing the Chi-square statistic was calculated using this formula to acquire the r value:

which can then be used to calculate the d value using the following formula:

The effect size estimate for studies providing t statistics were calculated using this formula:

Johnson ( 1989 ).

Lastly, some studies provided effect size estimates, and no additional computation was necessary. Once the effect sizes are calculated for the individual studies, the overall effect size measure for all the studies combined can be calculated. This can be done, according to Glass et al. ( 1981 ), by simply calculating the mean of the individual effect size measures. However, this approach does not take into consideration the fact that the studies vary in sample size. Hedges and Olkin ( 1985 ) provide a formula for calculating the overall mean effect size as an unbiased weighted estimate (weighted by sample size) of the population effect size:

where the variance of d is calculated using the following formula:

as well as the corresponding confidence intervals using this formula:

in order to calculate a 100(1- ά) confidence interval (p.111). The overall mean effect sizes for this meta-analysis were calculated according to the procedures recommended by Hedges and Olkin ( 1985 ) within the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, a dedicated meta-analytic software.

Description of studies

Data were extracted from the studies that met the inclusion criteria. Cohen’s d was computed from the studies that provided means, standard deviations, and sample sizes for the control and treatment groups. For studies reporting t-test outcomes, F-test results, Chi-square data, p values, r, and R 2 values, and sample sizes were used to compute Cohen’s d . This data is recomputed as a Cohen’s d for each study. If the study did not provide enough information, it was not included. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis ® was used for this analysis. Effect size estimates were based on random effects as opposed to fixed effects. Random effects were used since the student gains measures were inconsistent across the different studies. The random-effects estimate does result in a more conservative estimate than the fixed effects estimate.

The results from the 20 studies were extracted and resulted in 45 effect size estimates. Overall, the effect size estimate demonstrated heterogeneity, with a large positive significant effect across the studies, Cohen’s d  = 0.558. p  < 0.001, CI 95 [0.514: 0.603]. The Z-value is Z = 5.601, p  < 0.001, suggesting that the mean effect size differs from zero (Borenstein et al., 2021 ; Hedges & Olkin, 1985 ). Additionally, the Q-statistic, which provides a test of the null hypothesis that all studies in the analysis share a common effect size, was computed. The results for Q indicate that Q(44) = 3080.71, p  < 0.001, indicating that the true effect size is statistically different across the analyzed studies. Likewise, the I-squared statistic is 99%, which indicates that 99% of the variance in observed effects reflects variance in true effects rather than sampling error. The variance of true effect sizes, τ 2  = 0.414. Finally, the resulting prediction interval is − 0.729 to 1.904, indicating that the true effect size in 95% of all comparable studies will fall within this interval (Borenstein et al., 2021 ).

Specifically, these results indicate that students benefit from their participation in STEM, and the average STEM student will outperform approximately 70% of their same-age, same-grade peers who are not in STEM programming. Since the results indicate significant heterogeneity (variation in study outcomes between studies) is indicated for the full model, R  = 0.5 5 , SE = 0.20, CI 95 [0.15, 0.96], p  = 0.007, additional analyses will identify the study differences moderating this large effect estimate outcome. Table 1 provides a breakdown of each study included in the analyses.

As indicated in Table 1 , the number of effect size estimates extracted from the studies ranges from one to seven. The effect size estimates range from a large d  = − 0.1.9 to a large d  = 6.41. Figure  3 illustrates the forest plot of all included effect sizes in the random-effects model allowing for heterogeneity to yield an average treatment effect across studies.

Forest plot of all included effect sizes in the random-effects model

The studies were each examined for potential moderators to the reported outcomes. The identified moderators include grade level of the student group, reported race, type of STEM integration (see Becker & Park, 2011 ), dosage or time in STEM programming, assessment type (English Language Arts-ELA, Math, or Science), state or local assessment data, year of publication, data source, and location of research (domestic or international). The effect size estimates by reported race are provided in Table 2 .

As indicated above, there is a significant difference across the studies with designated Black student, Hispanic student, and minority student data, relative to the effect size data without, d  = 0.745, p  = 0.002. Further examination of the data by the minority (Black, Hispanic, and Minority) relative to non-minority reveals a non-significant difference in the effect size estimates, d  = 0.611, p  = 0.301.

Thirty potential effect size estimates provided specific grade level data with its reported data. The results by grade level are in Table 3 .

As indicated in Table 3 , significant differences are present based on grade level, p  < 0.001. The most significant effect size estimate is reported for eighth grade students ( d  = 1.55) followed by multiple grades studies ( d  = 1.17). STEM integration of each study was established based on the guidelines used in Becker and Park ( 2011 ). The results for STEM integration are provided in Table 4 .

As indicated above, “S-E” and “S-T-E-M” produce the largest positive effect size estimates for STEM integration. The effect size differences across STEM integration are statistically significant, p  < 0.001. Dosage of STEM experiences are provided in Table 5 .

Effect size estimates for dosage indicate that the largest effect is seen with a one-year program ( d  = 0.89), followed by a 4-year program ( d  = 0.87). Results indicate that the differences in dosage are statistically significant, p  < 0.001. Table 6 provides the effect size estimates based on the type of outcome measure used.

As indicated above, the greatest impact is found in the ELA assessments ( d  = 2.02) with a large significant positive effect estimate, followed by a large positive effect on science ( d  = 0.50). These effect size estimates by Assessment Type were statistically significant, p  < 0.001. Additionally, the outcome data were examined by whether the outcome was a state or local assessment. Results are in Table 7 .

The state and local assessment results indicate large effect size estimates; however, the state assessments produce a significantly larger estimate, d  = 0.60, p  < 0.001. Year of publication is a peripheral moderator that is examined to understand if there is a trend that presents, across time, regarding the effectiveness of STEM in middle school. The results are presented in Table 8 .

While there is variability in the data, the decline in 2022 results in a non-significant relationship between year and effect size estimates ( p  > 0.05). However, if 2022, which is based on one study that was likely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is removed, the association between year and effect size estimate increases to r  = 0.345, R 2  = 0.119, p  < 0.001 (Additional file 1 ).

Data were extracted from a program evaluation report, peer-reviewed publications, and dissertations/theses. The results for the data sources moderator are provided in Table 9 .

Significant differences were found across publication type, p  < 0.001, with the largest effect reported in a program evaluation report data, followed by Dissertations/Thesis data. Finally, data were examined by location of the study (international or domestic) and no significant differences were found, p  = 0.658.

Limitations

While this study focused on the impact of integrated STEM education on middle school STEM academic achievement, a few limitations exist in this meta-analytic research. First, given the necessary criteria for articles to be included in this meta-analytic study, our analysis excludes several empirical studies that have substantial value in providing insight into our research questions, however, they did not meet article selection requirements. This study included 20 studies containing 45 independent effect sizes. Second, the small quantity of studies meeting the selection criteria affects study generalizability. The conclusion that integrated STEM education is beneficial for URM students should be approached with caution. This result was interpreted based on three effect size estimates and two of these outcomes are from the same study (Adams, 2021 ), demonstrating the lack of generalizability of findings related to the effect of integrated STEM education and URM student achievement.

An analysis of gender could not be determined due to a lack of studies meeting the selection criteria reporting gender as a moderator. Lastly, we could not break apart Minority groups into demographic subgroups due to individual studies not reporting subgroups (see Table 2 ). The overall lack of empirical studies in the literature reporting on race used was small with few articles in this meta-analytic investigation reporting at least the minimum information and data necessary to estimate effect sizes. Although the lack of studies on race is a limitation of this work, it was also a substantial finding.

Publication bias

Publication bias is assessed to ensure that published studies do not dominate the effects found in a meta-analytic study. The Egger’s test of the Intercept suggests that bias is assessed by using precision (the inverse of the standard error) to predict the standardized effect (effect size divided by the standard error). In this equation, the size of the treatment effect is captured by the slope of the regression line (B1) while bias is captured by the intercept (B0). This approach may offer a number of advantages over the rank correlation approach. Under some circumstances, this may be a more powerful test. Additionally, this approach can be extended to include more than one predictor variable, which means that we can simultaneously assess the impact of several factors, including sample size, on the treatment effect. In this, the results indicate t (44) = 1.73, p  = 0.091, CI95 [− 0.54: 7.02], suggesting no significant publication bias exists. Figure  4 illustrates the funnel plot supporting the finding that there is a lack of complete asymmetry suggesting the absence of bias (Lin & Chu, 2018 ).

Funnel plot of effect sizes with 95% confidence interval boundaries

This meta-analysis determined the overall effect of twenty studies and resulted in 45 effect size estimates. Overall, the effect size estimate demonstrated heterogeneity, with a large positive significant effect across the studies, Cohen’s d  = 0.558. p  < 0.001, CI 95 [0.514: 0.603]. Specifically, this indicates that students benefit from their participation in STEM, and the average STEM student will outperform approximately 70% of their same-age, same-grade peers who are not participating in STEM programming. Since the results indicate heterogeneity exists across the studies, additional analyses identified the study differences moderating this large effect estimate outcome. We further expand on the difference in findings among moderators and attend to each research question below.

Moderators of student achievement

The first research question sought to identify moderators (i.e., demographics, level of STEM integration, grade levels, etc.) or assessment types (i.e., math or science) of student achievement and, in particular, the most impactful influencers of student achievement. We isolated the following moderators of achievement: grade level, student race, level of integration, dosage, data source (i.e., dissertation, publication), and publication year.

The majority of studies occurred in 7th and 8th grade with 12 and 10 studies, respectively (see Table 2 ). This is not surprising given many integrated STEM initiatives begin during peak middle school years (i.e., 7th and 8th grade). The 8th grade was the most impactful and statistically significant ( d  = 1.55) with 7th grade considerably less impactful showing comparatively weak impact ( d  = 0.31). As previously discussed, Cohen ( 2020 ) supports the introduction of STEM initiatives during the middle school years as it can provide a resurgence of student investment in school when interest in traditional schooling begins to wane. In addition, STEM programming can spark career interests, facilitate hands-on learning, and encourage problem-solving across subjects during a time when subjects are often taught in isolation. Given all these explanations for the increased impact in middle school, why is there a substantially stronger impact of STEM programming in 8th grade as opposed to other middle school grades? We propose that the influences proposed by Cohen ( 2020 ) are stronger in the 8th grade, perhaps, the oldest among middle school students has the most vested career interests. Additionally, we infer that many middle school STEM programs span across middle school years concluding in 8th grade. A common implementation model is to begin with one grade only for the first year and each year add a subsequent grade ending with 8th grade. The larger effect size evidenced in the 8th grade may be due to overcoming an implementation dip in the lower grades. Fullan ( 2007 , p. 40) describes an “implementation dip” as a drop in performance and, sometimes, confidence as a function of an innovation that requires new skills. Our findings indicative of a possible implementation dip is not surprising, particularly during early adoption of any systemic program, policy, or initiative involving collective change (Fullan, 2007 ) Implementing STEM programs often requires a change in teaching strategies and techniques, which can initially cause confusion and difficulty for students. The acquisition of new teaching techniques and training on interdisciplinary instruction can be difficult for educators and comes with implementation challenges.

Despite these initial implementation challenges, Fullan ( 2007 ) emphasizes overcoming these obstacles is imperative to implementing positive change and continued academic growth. STEM educators and educational leaders should be aware of the two types of problems when experiencing an “implementation dip”: the social-psychological fear of change, common when facilitating new educational policies, programs, or practices that require a shift in collective thinking; and the lack of technical knowledge or skills required to ensure successful outcomes (Fullan, 2007 ). In relation to STEM educator training and knowledge, the Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework is often used to support, facilitate learning, and assess STEM educators, claiming the interplay between technology, pedagogy, and content is necessary to ensure successfully integrated STEM education (Morales et al., 2022 ; Schmidt et al., 2009 ). It involves an understanding of the content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and technological knowledge (TK) necessary to design effective STEM learning experiences in a meaningful way (Schmidt et al., 2009 ). Educational leaders can support the development of TPACK in STEM educators several ways: being aware of valid instruments to assess TPACK skills and using them as a measure educator knowledge (Schmidt et al., 2009 ); providing professional development (PD) opportunities for educators to participate in ongoing PD, such as workshops, online courses, and peer-to-peer mentoring (Major & McDonald, 2021 ); supporting curriculum development by providing resources and funding for the creation of integrated STEM units that incorporate technology, and ensuring that the curriculum aligns with the latest standards and best practice STEM educational practices; encouraging collaboration and sharing among STEM educators; and, lastly, ensuring that school have the necessary technology infrastructures to support technology integration in STEM education, such as devices, software, and hardware, along with adequate educator training to effectively use these resources (Major & McDonald, 2021 ).

Nonetheless, teacher enthusiasm, confidence, and pedagogy development improve over time with increasing implementation year (Tytler et al., 2019 ). In addition, students may be adapting to new learning methods and using critical thinking skills that may not have been used prior to exposure to STEM programming, particularly URM students or students lacking prior opportunities and exposure. URM students engaging in integrated STEM education may demonstrate lower shifts in achievement and performance due to implementation dips compared to their non-URM peers. We posit decreases in achievement among URM students participating in STEM education programs, evidenced by the implementation dip phenomenon, contribute to the “pipeline” leakage of more URM students withdrawing from STEM programs compared to white or Asian students (Estrada et al., 2016 ). We propose several methods STEM leaders can leverage to retain URM students and increase achievement and performance, particularly during the early stages of STEM initiatives. First, STEM educators and leaders should design and implement culturally responsive teaching using curricula that are culturally responsive and inclusive, which involves acknowledging and valuing the diverse experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds of students (Villegas & Lucas, 2002 ). STEM educators can embrace culturally responsive teaching practices by being socioculturally conscious, upholding the viewpoints of diverse students in the classroom, recognizing themselves as responsible parties to create change and promote equitable outcomes, and design instruction that builds on what their URM student already know (Villegas & Lucas, 2002 ) and not a construct of what curricular organizations and developers think URM students know. Second, Villegas and Lucas ( 2002 ) express the importance of educator PD that helps model responsive educator characteristics evident in progressive curriculum. In addition, they emphasize honoring multicultural perspectives and responsiveness in a way that is embedded in the vision of the school and collective teacher capacity, further providing an organizing framework to achieve this complex task (Villegas & Lucas, 2002 ).

There was only one effect size estimate for both the Black and Hispanic race categories and one effect size estimate defined as a minority group with 40 estimates for non-minority student groups. Effect size examination revealed a non-significant difference among minority groups (Black, Hispanic, and Minority) relative to non-minority effect size estimates, d  = 0.611, p  = 0.301. We can infer from this finding that it is not the case that Black, Hispanic, and perhaps students from URM groups are not academically benefiting from integrated STEM education programs—they are merely not participating! The limited number of research studies providing race or minority group data on student achievement is staggering. This finding further showcases the lack of URM student participation in STEM and STEM-related programs previously reported by Moreno et al. ( 2016 ) and Estrada et al. ( 2016 ).

The most impactful level of integration occurred with the incorporation of science and engineering (S-E, d  = 1.17). However, the effect size estimate was determined from one study. The highest frequency of effect size estimates ( n  = 24) occurred at full integration (S-T-E-M, d  = 1.09) with a significant effect size difference across integration types. A previous meta-analysis analyzing the impact of 28 studies across seven forms of integration (E-M, S-T-E-M, S-E, S-T-E, S-M, S-T-M, and S-T) determined the effects of integrative approaches among STEM subjects (Becker & Park, 2011 ). Although the meta-analysis is antiquated for purposes of analysis of findings for this work (published in 2011 using empirical studies spanning ten years prior), the method of coding studies by subject integration was used. Similar to Becker and Park ( 2011 ), we conclude it is difficult to analyze the results of the meta-analysis given the few empirical studies for particular integration types (i.e., S-E, S-E-M). Due to few empirical studies at certain levels of integration, further research needs to be conducted along with more diversified STEM integration methods. However, the large effect size of greater than one standard deviation ( d  = 1.09) across 24 independent samples supports the positive impact of full STEM integration on student achievement.

Full STEM integration, indicated by the notation S-T-E-M, is described in detail with sample curricula explained in several meta-analysis articles included in this investigation. Adams ( 2021 ) emphasizes the weaving of interdisciplinary PBL to engage real-world problem-solving, providing the sample project: students building a wind turbine in science while concurrently writing a technical manual in ELA. This project could be further expanded to incorporate math standards (i.e., calculating the circumference and area of the circular rotation of the turbine blades or creating scaled drawings to include in the technical manual), with elements of technology included by expanding on the use of next-generation wind energy and applications. Interdisciplinary curricula are strategically implemented to increase the academic achievement of students across all STEM subjects (Bybee, 2013 ). Chine ( 2021 ) provides another example of full STEM integration by referencing Bybee’s five aspects of the learning cycle theory: engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation ( 1997 ) and Dewey’s constructivist learning-by-doing approach ( 1897 ). Chine ( 2021 ) describes two comprehensive and interdisciplinary annual projects completed by students participating in a fully integrated STEM education program: the building and racing of Soap Box Derby cars and the assembling, launching, and retrieving of a weather balloon. The former involves students engaging in math, science, and engineering curriculum grade-level standards while building the cars, with the topics in the following order: collection and analysis, ratio and proportion, geometry, simple machines, gravity, energy, friction, and speed. Taking over two months to complete with students participating approximately 45 min per school day, the “Masters of Gravity” curriculum includes optional competition projects involving a photography contest, infomercial creation, and press release design, which includes ELA standards allowing for an immersive, fully integrated STEM experience (Masters of Gravity, n.d.). A last example of fully integrated STEM programming involved a 10-week, activity-based education program with students participating in approximately one activity per week (Hiğde & Aktamış, 2022 ). Table 10 displays a few of the STEM activities and describes the relationships to each of the STEM disciplines.

The majority of integrated STEM programming happened over one year (21 studies), with the largest effect size estimates occurring at that dosage ( d  = 0.89). Additionally, a statistically significant impact occurred at the longest term of four years ( d  = 0.87). However, short-cycle STEM programming, occurring over a few weeks, short-cycle STEM programming reported a large effect size estimate ( d  = 0.80). This is similar to the reported finding of Kazu and Kurtoglu Yalcin ( 2021 ), which reported a significantly higher impact for short STEM program interventions (2–5 weeks), emphasizing the importance of short-cycle programs and extracurricular STEM initiatives. These findings support the potential short-term and long-term impact of integrated STEM programming on student achievement and support the need for further research.

Analyses of effect size estimates of the remaining moderators are described. The subject area of assessment, there was a large significant, positive effect estimate ( d  = 2.02) using ELA assessments. This may be suggestive that students with the strongest reading abilities have access to more resources or simply put, better students are getting involved in STEM programs. On the other hand, math assessments showed a relatively small effect ( d  = 0.34). ELA and math assessments are the preferred measures of assessing academic achievement, as most studies used standardized state tests in both subjects to determine impact on student achievement. This finding is surprising with deeper investigation and further research needed to better analyze these results. More research must also be conducted to explain the substantial differences in effect size estimates between state ( d  = 0.81) and local ( d  = 14) assessments. Given the strict, standards-driven approach evident in state assessments, the effect size estimates carry more weight than the local assessment estimates, which are locally regulated at the school level and often exhibit issues in validity and reliability. Furthermore, data source is an area of subsequent research with differences in effect size estimates ranging from d  = 0.21 (publications) and d  = 0.87 (evaluation reports). We hypothesize evaluation reports have potential motivation to report more promising or better results to due pressures involving funding. Lastly, there was variability in effect size estimates for publication year with a non-significant decline in 2022 results demonstrating a non-significant relationship between year and effect size estimates ( p  > 0.05). However, if 2022, which is based on one study that was likely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is removed, the association between year and effect size estimate increases to r  = 0.345, R 2  = 0.119, p  < 0.001. More research needs to be conducted to determine the effect of integrated STEM education on student achievement as a function of year of implementation and publication.

Student achievement and integrated STEM participation

The second research question was to determine what differences exist in academic achievement between students participating in STEM education programs compared to students participating in a traditional setting. The overall effect size estimate demonstrated heterogeneity, with a large positive significant effect across the studies Cohen’s d  = 0.558. p  < 0.001, CI 95 [0.514: 0.603]. Specifically, this indicates that students benefit from their participation in STEM, and the average STEM student will outperform approximately 70% of their same-age, same-grade peers who are not in STEM programming. A meta-analysis of STEM education’s impact on student achievement across all grade levels, not only isolating middle school, found statistically higher ( g  = 1.150) using a random-effects model (Kazu & Kurtoglu Yalcin, 2021 ). Similar meta-analyses reported from Turkish studies have reported varying effect sizes ranging from small to large, indicating a weak to strong effect (Ayverdi & Öz-Aydın, 2020 ; Saraç, 2018 ; Yücelyiğit & Toker, 2021 ). Researchers reporting on mostly U.S. empirical studies have found consistently moderate effect sizes: d  = 0.63 (Becker & Park, 2011 ); d  = 0.62 (D’Angelo et al., 2014 ); d  = 0.46 (Belland et al. 2017 ). Our findings indicate a moderately strong impact on middle school achievement aligning with similar U.S. studies analyzing all grade levels. However, prior research has not analyzed the impact of STEM integration on middle school achievement only, nor has it sought to determine the impact on URM students, particularly students of color.

Tending to opportunity gaps into college and beyond

Lastly, this meta-analysis sought to provide deeper insight into the differences in academic achievement between URM students or marginalized students participating in STEM programming to similar students in a traditional setting. Students from URM groups have a higher risk of dropping out of STEM education programs earlier when not exhibiting success, determined by good grades or positive feedback from peers and teachers. The use of “early warning systems” to catch struggling or “at-risk” students early, before they stop participating in STEM programs, is important to ensure URM group retention in STEM education programs in middle school and high school (Bernacki et al., 2020 ). In addition, addressing opportunity gaps related to race is a systemic problem in schools requiring educators, teachers, and staff members to gain knowledge on how to address this gap. Milner ( 2020 ) states a three-pronged approach to attending to the racial opportunity gap through building knowledge of: (1) their own racial identity and their students, (2) their own experiences with racism and their students, and (3) how experiences with racial discrimination create and contribute to trauma, which greatly influences student learning and, subsequently, achievement. Milner ( 2020 ) suggests an Opportunity Gap Framework that focuses on how educators conceptualize and reflect on their teaching and learning by focusing on providing opportunities and experiences for students over valuing outcomes (i.e., achievement, test scores). The main takeaway from this principle attends to the interrelatedness of the achievement and opportunity gaps—student achievement improves when opportunity gaps are addressed (Milner, 2020 ).

Educational frameworks and programs similar to integrated STEM education initiatives need to attend to both students' social-emotional needs and peer relationship building, not merely supplemental content alone. Van Sickle et al. ( 2020 ) analyzed the impact of comprehensive (i.e., social networking and peer relationship-building opportunities) versus supplemental (i.e., math content support) STEM programming on the achievement of college students in STEM majors. They determined for URM students, comprehensive programming was associated with substantial learning gain with supplemental instruction alone having little effect on student achievement. For non-URM students, the opposite was found—student learning gains occurred mostly during supplemental instruction. The concept of marginalized and URM students needing social connection and the feeling of belonging in order to attain academic success is known among researchers (McGee, 2021 ; Milner, 2020 ; Williams et al., 2019 ), and we postulate it applies to students participating in STEM programs from kindergarten through high school and beyond!

The lack of representation of empirical studies on the impact of integrated STEM education on students of color sparks debate—is it students of color are not being included in studies, or is it students of color are not participating in STEM-related programming? More research needs to be conducted to answer this question.

Regardless of the root cause for the lack of research on the academic performance among students of color, we need to increase URM student participation and retention in integrated STEM programs, thus increasing opportunities for students. Several methods increase and retain students in STEM and STEM-related (e.g., computer science education, robotics, math extracurricular programs, etc.) programs and subsequently increase engagement. The intentional over-recruitment of students of color preparing for the anticipated high mortality of students participating in STEM programming is one solution. However, overcompensating does not solve the core problem: Why are students of color dropping out of STEM programs and, at the college level, leaving STEM and STEM-related majors? Further research needs to be conducted to determine the impetus behind high student STEM attrition rates among students of color. However, many researchers are focusing not on the “why” but on “how” to include all people, regardless of background, in advancing technologies and driving new innovations. In STEM Education for the Future: A Vision Report, the National Science Foundation’s progressive vision statement for STEM education experts cite a dire need for STEM role models for Black and Hispanic youth, a population projected to encompass half of all school children by 2060 (NSF, 2020 ). Researchers adamantly discuss three top priorities synthesized from the triangulation of individual experts and students, the NSF’s 10 Big Ideas for Future Investment, and the National Science Board’s Vision 2030 that ensure all learners are prepared and have the skills to succeed in STEM careers.

Priority One: All learners at all stages of their educational pathways must have access to and opportunities to choose STEM careers and contribute to the innovation economy.

Priority Two: We must build an ethical workforce with future-proof skills.

Priority Three: We must ensure that the appropriate technological innovations make it into learning spaces, whether face-to-face classrooms or not, guided by educators who understand how modern technology can affect learning and how to use technology to enhance context and enrich learning experiences for students.

(NSF, 2020 , p. 12).

The first priority sparks the most difficult challenge through the lens of educational equity, with high-quality STEM education being inherently unequal, with a student's family income and zip code being the biggest predictor of STEM program quality in kindergarten through high school. Poor and under-resourced communities, both rural and urban, are left behind, struggling to make a positive impact on student outcomes. The STEM Education for the Future: A Vision Report proposes several actions to “create opportunities for all students to receive an accessible and high-quality STEM education and help them foster a love and curiosity for science and mathematics from an early age” (NSF, 2020 , p. 13). We must challenge past beliefs by making equally accessible and sustainable program changes, train and incentivize STEM educators, and, in a particular effort to reach URM students and students of color, use culturally relevant teaching practices and context-appropriate learning experiences. The use of culturally relevant STEM learning practices (Thevenot, 2022 ) and cultural competence among teachers and educational staff members (Estrada et al., 2016 ) are evidence-based strategies shown to increase both student interest and commitment to STEM education. A challenge to ensuring equitable access to opportunities in STEM education is the presence of bias, which creates an uninviting environment and contributes to STEM attrition, particularly among college students pursuing STEM majors. Gender bias, or implicit bias against women in STEM, has been long known; however, racial bias or bias toward first-generation students or students experiencing poverty is a more recent topic among researchers (Pusey, 2020 ). Further investigation is needed to determine the influence of staff, teachers, and institutional biases on URM students and, in particular, students of color and STEM program participation at the middle school level.

Experts have devised similar plans to increase URM participation and retention in STEM education at the undergraduate level. In Improving Underrepresented Minority Student Persistence in STEM , researchers propose why the STEM pipeline and other academic pathways leak more among URM than among Asian or White students (Estrada et al., 2016 ). Using Lewin’s approach to change, Estrada et al. ( 2016 ) posits five recommendations to increase STEM persistence in college. They suggest creating strategic partnerships, attending to student resource disparities, using interventions that increase students’ interests and commitment in STEM fields, and focusing on removing institutional barriers (Estrada et al., 2016 ). The positive correlation between a student’s sense of belonging and academic success and motivation is long known (Freeman et al., 2007 ), with students who feel they belong being more apt to report a purpose and value in their work and higher self-efficacy (Verschelden, 2017 ).

URM students suffer from gender- and race-related stereotypes affecting participation in academic interventions and programs such as STEM education initiatives, with lack of participation and retention, not an academic problem but a social problem (Williams et al., 2019 ; Van Sickle et al., 2020 ). Gender-related stereotypes about one’s intellectual ability emerge as early as the age of five, in the way that children tend to perceive males as brilliant and smart and females less so (Bian et al., 2017 ). Ever-present racial stereotyping is common, with researchers reporting that students of color experience racial microaggressions from instructors and peers, with Black students even more exposed to racial stereotypes (Lee et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, Asian and Asian American students, as another group of minority students, are facing so-called “positive stereotypes”, namely they are often assumed to be good at math and science, extremely hardworking and competent, but disliked at the same time (Lee et al., 2017, p. 225). Though some investigations found that this kind of “positive stereotype” posits students’ academic performance, it can also lead to pressure and anxiety due to high or even unrealistic expectations. In response, these students “miss out on important aspects of life” to meet such expectations (McGee et al., 2017 , p. 226).

Stereotypes can be harmful to students’ motivation and learning outcomes. According to Cheryan et al. ( 2011 ), when a stereotype mismatches with a student’s self-concept, it will negatively affect an adolescent’s interest and motivation in STEM, which becomes a barrier to their entry into STEM-related domains. The negative impact of a mismatch between the social stereotype and a student’s self-perception of their self-efficacy in STEM fields is particularly harmful to URM students. After URM students are recruited in STEM domains, the existence of racial microaggressions negatively affects their emotions, confidence, and retention. Subsequently, racial stereotyping contributes to the increased number of STEM students of color leaving STEM college majors, and we propose that may be a contributive reason for the lack of students of color participating in middle school STEM education programs.

Many research works have confirmed that URM students’ sense of belonging affects their decision to pursue a career in STEM, as well as their persistence in related areas (Rainey et al., 2018 ). Female high school students are less likely to report fitting in or feeling accepted in STEM courses than their male peers, but female students reporting a sense of belonging had increased intentions to major in STEM in college (Ito & McPherson, 2018 ). Researchers are attempting to identify the factors affecting the sense of belonging and, accordingly, seeking ways of intervention. McKoy ( 2019 ) reported that for African American engineering students, the lack of role models, namely faculty members of the same race, hinders their will to continue their study in this field. This indicates that instructor–student homophily, or the extent to which students consider their instructors to share similar attitudes (e.g., shared beliefs and values) and backgrounds (e.g., shared experiences) (McCroskey et al., 2006 ), can affect their engagement and persistence in STEM areas.

Much recent work discusses the impact of instructor–student (or mentor–mentee) homophily on students’ participation and persistence in educational institutions. First, perceived instructor homophily is strongly related to students’ willingness to participate in class (Myers et al., 2009 )—the more the instructor shares similarity with the students, the more credible they will be perceived. The credibility and authenticity of teachers have a positive impact on student’s motivation to learn (Wheeless et al., 2011 ) and have a strong influence on URM students. As Spears ( 2016 ) and Kricorian et al. ( 2020 ) stated, if URM students feel supported by the environment where they have meaningful, positive contact with faculty members and instructors, they will become more likely to persist in school, especially when STEM URM students are mentored by those of their same gender and ethnicity.

URM faculty members play a crucial role in enhancing diversity and inclusivity in educational institutions at the college level with the increasing spotlight. Miriti ( 2020 ) states, “there has been much investment in diversifying the STEM workforce, but scholars of color continue to be strongly underrepresented” (p. 4). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2022), the percentage of faculty of color in degree-granting postsecondary institutions hardly increased from the year of 2018 (24.4%) to 2020 (25.8%).

Similarly, the percentage of minority teachers has not increased significantly from 1999 to 2018, either. In recent years, the percentage of Black and Native American teachers has dropped, exemplifying an ever-present problem (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019 ; U.S. Dept. of Education, 2021 ). Though non-White, non-male, and first-generation faculty are more involved in diversity and inclusivity-related activities through, for instance, recruiting URM students and faculty, participating in diversity-focused academic works, serving on inclusivity committees, etc., their efforts are still restricted due to insufficient resources (Jimenez et al., 2019 ). In other words, instead of not having enough knowledge or training, the real barrier to their engagement in diversity and inclusion-related activities is not regarded as a part of their professional evaluation criteria.

Thus, how could educators reduce the impact of stereotypes and improve the sense of belonging and self-efficacy of URM students in STEM? The effect of role models should never be ignored. When assigning students to mentors, their preferences and matching background with faculty should be considered, and we propose ensuring teacher–student homophily within middle school STEM contexts. Highlighting the achievements of STEM professionals from diverse backgrounds and utilizing digital media to increase URM students’ exposure to those role models are also promising ways to reduce their concerns about being recruited in STEM domains (Master & Meltzoff, 2020 ) and solidify their sense of belonging and STEM self-efficacy (Kricorian et al., 2020 ). As an implication of this work, we propose collaborative and focused attention among all stakeholders (e.g., teachers, practitioners, educational administrators, policymakers, and families) on the societal and cultural factors impacting both URM students’ participation and retention in integrated STEM education programs.

In summary, many factors contribute to the lack of students of color (i.e., Black, Hispanic, Multi-racial) participating in STEM education programs in K-12, contributing to the smaller proportion of undergraduates of color majoring in and graduating from STEM-related fields. Racial stereotyping, biases among educational faculty, the inadequacy of culturally responsive teaching practices, and students lacking a sense of belonging all contribute to the opportunity gap evidenced among URM students. To ensure all students are exposed to integrated STEM education and academic interventions in general, attention needs to focus on attending to social and cultural factors. This work highlights the lack of empirical studies on the impact of integrated STEM education among URM populations and, in particular, students of color. In addition, our investigation further exposes the opportunity gap evident among URM students calling attention to the need for interventions attending to cultural inclusivity, attention to social-emotional wellness, sense of belonging, and awareness of biases.

The findings indicate that integrated STEM programming in middle school has a positive, statistically significant effect across multiple grade levels, particularly 8th grade with integrative STEM programming interventions most impactful at dosages of one academic year or over the course of four years. Due to the lack of empirical studies at various levels of STEM integration, further research needs to be conducted. However, the large effect size of greater than one standard deviation ( d  = 1.09) across 24 independent samples is supportive of the positive impact full STEM integration can have on student achievement over other integration levels (e.g., S-E, S-M, S-E-M). ELA assessments showed the greatest impact on student achievement suggesting that students with the strongest reading abilities have access to more resources or simply put, better students are getting involved in STEM programs. A deeper investigation into students’ performance by assessment subject area is warranted to provide insight into these findings. In addition, subsequent research on the following moderators is needed: publication year, assessment type (i.e., state or local), and data source (i.e., evaluation report, publication, dissertation/thesis).

Students in middle school overall benefit from STEM program participation, with the average STEM student outperforming approximately 70% of their same-age, same-grade peers who are not participating in STEM programming. In particular, URM students benefit even more from quality integrated STEM education initiatives, but there is one caveat—they must be given the opportunity. This work highlights the lack of empirical studies on URM performance suggesting insufficient student participation and exposure to middle school integrated STEM initiatives. We discuss the need for collaborative and focused attention on the societal (e.g., racial stereotyping) and cultural (e.g., lack of cultural competence among educators and faculty) factors impacting both URM student participation and retention in integrated STEM education programs.

Availability of data and materials

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Abbreviations

Content knowledge

English Language Arts

Project-based learning

Professional development

Pedagogical knowledge

Robust variance estimates

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Technological knowledge

Underrepresented minority groups

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to: Dr. Carmen Thomas-Browne for her thoughts and feedback; Xinyu Yang for her guidance within the initial draft of the Discussion attending to diversity, equity, and inclusion; Dr. Kenneth R. Koedinger and the Personalized Learning Squared (PLUS) team for their support; and the anonymous reviewers for providing their welcomed comments to refine this manuscript.

Submission and publication fees are supported by Carnegie Mellon University.

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Danielle R. Thomas and Karen H. Larwin contributed equally to this work.

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DT designed the research, investigated articles, and drafted the work as an extension of her prior doctoral research. KL researched analyzed articles, interpreted the data, and provided guidance in creating the work. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Danielle R. Thomas is a Systems Scientist and Special Faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute within the School of Computer Science. A former middle school teacher and school administrator, her research interests include STEM education, human–computer interaction, and learning engineering with an emphasis on ensuring educational equity.

Karen H. Larwin is a full Professor at Youngstown State University in the cross-disciplinary Education Leadership Program. Her research focuses on quantitative applications in Structural Equation Modeling and Hierarchical Linear Modeling, as well as in learning theories focused on educational equitable opportunities for underrepresented groups.

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Thomas, D.R., Larwin, K.H. A meta-analytic investigation of the impact of middle school STEM education: where are all the students of color?. IJ STEM Ed 10 , 43 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-023-00425-8

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2023

Following our annual tussle with hundreds of studies of merit, we’ve pared them down to 10 you shouldn’t miss—from what AI can (and can’t) do to the neuroscience of brain synchrony.

For those of us hoping for a quiet, back-to-normal kind of year, the research coming out of 2023 might disappoint. A rising tide of teenage mental health issues sent researchers scurrying for answers, and the sudden ascendance of AI posed a new threat to codes of academic conduct and caused some educators to forecast the end of teaching as we know it (we’re here to dispel that myth).

There was plenty of good news in the mix—and fascinating news, too. Neuroscientists continued to push the envelope on mapping the human brain, using cutting-edge technology to get a sneak peek at the “brain synchrony” between students and teachers as they learn about complex topics, and a comprehensive review of social and emotional learning confirmed, once again, that there’s no substitute for caring, welcoming school environments.

Finally, we did our due diligence and unearthed classroom strategies that can make a big difference for students, from the use of math picture books to a better, more humane way to incorporate tests and games of knowledge into your classroom activities.

1. AI MAY CUT AN EDUCATOR’S PLANNING TIME DRAMATICALLY

In case anyone thought the jury was still out on the Turing test, which proposes a hypothetical threshold at which humans and machines respond indistinguishably to a prompt— more evidence recently came in, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell who’s testing who.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina set a “deep neural” AI model to work on a college-level anatomy and physiology textbook, after first training the software to recognize important information. The AI took stock, pondered in its fashion, and then dutifully produced 2,191 test questions tied to learning standards, which a panel of teachers judged to be “on par with human-generated questions in terms of their relevance to the learning objectives.” Remarkably, the instructors also said they’d consider adopting the machine-generated questions for their courses.

That’s spooky, but not without its silver linings. Test creation is time-consuming for teachers, and one knowledgeable educator who took AI for a test drive says that it performs well on other tasks like planning lessons, writing instructions, and even composing emails to parents. New AI-powered tools like Diffit, Curipod, and MagicSchool.ai, meanwhile, are starting to sound like revolutionary teaching aids.

Concern that the end of human teaching is one software release away is premature: Studies we’ve reviewed suggest that AI still requires a lot of fine-tuning, and in July of 2023 , researchers concluded that without human intervention, AI is atrocious at mathematics, performing poorly on open-ended problems and routinely flubbing even simple math calculations. To be useful, it turns out, AI may need us more than we need it.

2. A FASCINATING GUIDE TO BETTER QUIZZING

No one likes tests—except the three authors of a 2023 study , apparently. The trio, who have experience as teachers and researchers, sing the praises of virtually every kind of test, quiz, and knowledge game, asserting that such assessments should be frequent, low-stakes, highly engaging, and even communal. Their rationale: When properly designed and stripped of dread, tests and quizzes dramatically improve “long-term retention and the creation of more robust retrieval routes for future access,” a well-established phenomenon known as the testing effect .

The study is a fascinating, granular look at the mechanics of testing and its impacts on learning. Here are some of the highlights:

Mix it up: To maximize student engagement, quiz students frequently—but don’t let the format get stale. In their analysis, the authors endorse testing formats as varied as multiple choice, cued-recall tests, clickers, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and contests of knowledge.

Be competitive: When designing multiple-choice or true-false tests, opt for “competitive alternatives” in your answers. For example, when asking “What is the hottest terrestrial planet?,” proffer Venus , Mars , and Mercury instead of Venus , Uranus , and Saturn —because “Uranus and Saturn aren’t terrestrial planets.” Competitive alternatives require students to scrutinize all options, the authors hypothesize, leading them to retrieve and consider more learned material.

Pretest: Quizzing students on material they haven’t yet learned improves long-term performance “even if [students] are not able to answer any of those questions correctly,” according to the researchers. Notably, pretesting can also lead to “a reduction in mind wandering” during subsequent lessons.

Get communal: Asking students to take tests in groups can improve retention and motivation while reducing anxiety. Consider focusing on specific rather than open-ended questions, the authors caution, since students can sometimes “recall and remember information less accurately” when working together.

Pass it on: Teach students to self-test by “summarizing the main points from a lecture… without looking at any notes,” or by meeting in “small study groups where the students practice testing one another—an activity that many students already report doing.”

3. HOW TONE OF VOICE CHANGES CLASSROOM CULTURE

Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, subtle shifts in a teacher’s tone of voice—a sharp rise in volume or a sudden barrage of repeated instructions born of frustration—can be the first sign that something’s awry in the classroom, disturbing a fragile equilibrium and leading students to clam up or act out, a study published late in 2022 suggests.

Researchers observed as teens and preteens listened to instructions given by teachers—“I’m waiting for people to quiet down” or “It’s time to tidy up all of your belongings,” for example—delivered in warm, neutral, or controlling tones. While the effect was unintended, an authoritative tone often came off as confrontational, undermining students’ sense of competence and discouraging them from confiding in teachers. Warm, supportive tones, on the other hand, contributed to a classroom environment that reinforced learning across multiple social and academic dimensions like sense of belonging, autonomy, and enjoyment of the class. 

It takes years to find the right tonal balance, says experienced middle school teacher Kristine Napper. “Neither high expectations nor kind hearts can do the job alone,” she coaches . Instead, teachers should strive for a warm, supportive tone and then draw on that “wellspring of trust to hold students to high standards of deep engagement with course content.”

4. BRAINS THAT FIRE TOGETHER WIRE TOGETHER

In 2021, we reported that as students progressed through a computer science course, the learning material left neural fingerprints that mirrored brain activity in other students, the teacher, and experts in the field. “Students who failed to grasp the material,” we wrote, “exhibited neural signatures that were outliers; they were drifting.” But the brain patterns of students who performed well on a later test aligned strongly with other top performing students—and with the teacher and experts, too.

Intriguingly, even abstract concepts—those that lack any physical attributes—appeared to trigger similar mental representations in students’ minds, attesting to the remarkable cognitive flexibility underlying human communication and knowledge sharing.

A 2023 study using electroencephalography (EEG) largely confirms those findings. High school science teachers taught groups of young adults fitted with electrodes about science topics such as bipedalism, habitats, and lipids. Researchers found that stronger “brain synchrony” between peers—and between students and teachers—predicted better academic performance on follow-up tests, both immediately and a full week later.

Together, these studies underscore the importance of scholarly expertise and direct instruction, but also hint at the downstream power of peer-to-peer and social learning. As knowledge passes from teachers to learners to greater and lesser degrees—some students grasp material quickly, others more slowly—an opportunity to distribute the work of learning emerges. When advanced students are paired with struggling peers, assisted by nudges from the teacher, groups of students might eventually converge around an accurate, common understanding of the material.

5. IN SUM, MATH PICTURE BOOKS WORK

The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words—and two are worth two thousand—might be expressed, mathematically, as a simple multiplication formula. But can reading math picture books really multiply learning?

A 2023 review of 16 studies concluded that math books like Are We There Yet, Daddy? and Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi improved student engagement and attitudes toward math; strengthened kids’ grasp of math representations like graphs or physical models; and boosted performance on tasks like counting to 20, understanding place value, and calculating diameters. In early childhood, in particular, math picture books worked wonders—one study found that young students “tend to anticipate and guess what will happen next, resulting in high engagement, aroused interest in understanding the problems, and curiosity in finding solutions”—but even middle school students seemed mesmerized by math read-alouds.

Importantly, math picture books weren’t a substitute for procedural fluency or mathematical practice. Typically, the authors noted, teachers bracketed math units with picture books, introducing a mathematical concept “in order to prepare [students] for the upcoming practice and activities,” or, alternatively, used them to review material at the end of the lesson.

6. TO IMPROVE STUDENT WRITING, REDUCE FEEDBACK (AND PUT THE ONUS ON KIDS)

It’s hard to move the needle on student writing. Hours of close reading followed by the addition of dozens of edifying margin notes can swallow teacher weekends whole, but there’s no guarantee students know how to use the feedback productively.

In fact, without guidance, revisions tend to be superficial, a new study suggests—students might correct typos and grammatical mistakes, for example, or make cursory adjustments to a few ideas, but leave it at that. A promising, time-saving alternative is to deploy rubrics, mentor texts, and other clarifying writing guidelines.

In the study, high school students were graded on the clarity, sophistication, and thoroughness of their essays before being split into groups to test the effectiveness of various revision strategies. Students who consulted rubrics that spelled out the elements of an excellent essay—a clear central thesis, support for the claim, and cohesive overall structure, for example—improved their performance by a half-letter grade while kids who read mentor texts boosted scores by a third of a letter grade.

Rubrics and mentor texts are reusable, “increase teachers’ efficient use of time,” and “enhance self-feedback” in a way that can lead to better, more confident writers down the line, the new research suggests.

7. A NEW THEORY ABOUT THE TEEN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Parents, teachers, and medical professionals are wringing their hands over the alarming, decades-long rise in teenage mental health issues, including depression, feelings of “ persistent hopelessness ,” and drug addiction.

The root causes remain elusive—cell phones and social media are prime suspects—but a sprawling 2023 study offers another explanation that’s gaining traction: After scouring surveys, data sets, and cultural artifacts, researchers theorized that a primary cause is “a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”

Scholarly reviews of historical articles, books, and advice columns on child rearing depict an era when young children “walked or biked to school alone,” and contributed to their “family’s well being” and “community life” through meaningful chores and jobs. If that all feels vaguely mythical, data collected over the last 50 years reveals a correlation: frank admissions by parents that their children play outdoors independently less than they did, and significant drops in the number of kids who walk, bike, or bus to school alone or are allowed to cross busy roads by themselves. In the U.S., for example, a government survey showed that 48 percent of K–8 students walked to school in 1969, but by 2009 only 13 percent did.

Risky play and unsupervised outdoor activities, meanwhile, which might “protect against the development of phobias” and reduce “future anxiety by increasing the person’s confidence that they can deal effectively with emergencies,” are often frowned upon. That last point is crucial, because dozens of studies suggest that happiness in childhood, and then later in adolescence, is driven by internal feelings of “autonomy, competence, and relatedness”—and independent play, purposeful work, and important roles in classrooms and families are vital, early forms of practice.

Whatever the causes, young children seem to sense that something’s off. In one 2017 study , kindergartners who viewed images of fun activities routinely struck pictures that included adults from the category of play, rejecting the role of grown-ups in a domain they clearly saw as their own.

8. DIRECT INSTRUCTION AND INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING ARE COMPLEMENTARY

It’s an often-fiery but ultimately dubious debate: Should teachers employ direct instruction, or opt for inquiry-based learning?

At its core, direct instruction often conveys information “by lecturing and by giving a leading role to the teacher,” researchers explain in a 2023 study examining the evidence supporting both approaches. Critics typically focus solely on its passive qualities, a straw-man argument that ignores activities such as note-taking, practice quizzes, and classroom discussions. Opponents of inquiry-based learning, meanwhile, characterize it as chaotic, akin to sending students on a wild goose chase and asking them to discover the laws of physics on their own—though it can actually unlock “deep learning processes such as elaboration, self-explanation, and metacognitive strategies,“ the researchers say.

Both sides misrepresent what teachers actually do in classrooms. Instructional models are “often combined in practice,” the researchers note, and inquiry-based learning is usually supported with direct instruction. Teachers might begin a lesson by leading a review of key concepts, for example, and then ask students to apply what they’re learning in unfamiliar contexts. 

Let the debate rage on. Teachers already know that factual fluency and the need to struggle, flail, and even hit dead-ends are integral to learning. Teaching is fluid and complex and spools out in real time; it resists every effort to reduce it to a single strategy or program that works for all kids, in all contexts.

9. A TRULY MASSIVE REVIEW FINDS VALUE IN SEL—AGAIN

It’s déjà vu all over again. The researcher Joseph Durlak, who put social and emotional learning on the map with his 2011 study that concluded that SEL programs boosted academic performance by an impressive 11 percentile points, was back at it in 2023—working with an ambitious new team, led by Yale professor Christina Cipriano, on a similar mission.

The group just published a comprehensive meta-analysis that surveyed a whopping 424 studies involving over half a million K–12 students, scrutinizing school-based SEL programs and strategies such as mindfulness, interpersonal skills, classroom management, and emotional intelligence. The findings: Students who participated in such programs experienced “improved academic achievement, school climate, school functioning, social emotional skills, attitudes, and prosocial and civic behaviors,” the researchers concluded.

Intriguingly, SEL remained a powerful driver of better cultures and student outcomes into the middle and high school years, a reminder that there’s no cutoff point for building relationships, teaching empathy, and making schools inclusive and welcoming.

While politicians continue to stoke controversy on the topic, there’s actually widespread support for SEL, as long as it’s connected to better academic outcomes. A 2021 Thomas B. Fordham Institute survey revealed that parents reacted negatively to classroom instruction labeled “social and emotional learning,” but were favorably disposed when a single clause was added—calling it “social-emotional & academic learning” turned the tide and secured parental buy-in.

10. MORE EVIDENCE FOR MOVING PAST “FINDING THE MAIN IDEA”

In the United States, the teaching of reading comprehension has ping-ponged between skills-based and knowledge-based approaches. In 2019, things appeared to come to a head: While reading programs continued to emphasize transferable skills like “finding the main idea” or “making inferences,” the author Natalie Wexler published The Knowledge Gap , an influential takedown of skills-based methods, and a large 2020 study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute concurred, noting that “exposing kids to rich content in civics, history, and law” taught reading more effectively than skills-based approaches.

Now a pair of new, high-quality studies—featuring leading researchers and encompassing more than 5,000 students in 39 schools—appears to put the finishing touches on a decades-long effort to push background knowledge to the forefront of reading instruction.

In a Harvard study , 3,000 elementary students participated in a yearlong literacy program focused on the “knowledge rich” domains of social studies and science, exploring the methods used to study past events, for example, or investigating how animals evolve to survive in different habitats. Compared to their counterparts in business-as-usual classes, the “knowledge based” readers scored 18 percent higher on general reading comprehension. Background knowledge acts like a scaffold, the researchers explained, helping students “connect new learning to a general schema and transfer their knowledge to related topics.” In the other study , a team of researchers, including leading experts David Grissmer, Daniel Willingham, and Chris Hulleman, examined the impact of the “Core Knowledge” program on 2,310 students in nine lottery-based Colorado charter schools from kindergarten to sixth grade. The approach improved reading scores by 16 percentile points, and if implemented nationally, the researchers calculated, might catapult U.S. students from 15th to fifth place on international reading tests.

The pendulum is swinging, but the researchers caution against overreach: There appear to be “two separate but complementary cognitive processes involved in development and learning: ‘skill building’ and ‘knowledge accumulation,’” they clarified. We may have the balance out of whack, but to develop proficient readers, you need both.

Middle School Initiative expects to boost college access

Getting the right classes in middle school means getting into college

Typical 13-year-olds may not realize it, but the classes they take in middle school can determine whether they will go to college. 

For instance, students who don’t take algebra by the 9th grade most likely will never later take high school physics or calculus—classes that are important for college admissions.

“The data shows us that getting into college is based on the courses that you were given, or not given, in middle school,” said Joi Spencer, the dean of UC Riverside’s School of Education.

“It is not only about what kids decide. It's also about what gets decided for them,” she added. “The challenging part is that a lot of times the children and their families simply do not know what classes they should take.”

To boost college access, UCR’s School of Education is reaching out to Inland Empire middle school students and their families through a Middle School Initiative aimed at helping them get on the right academic track for college.

The initiative includes:

•    Sponsoring an essay contest in which middle school students are asked to write about the role of education in their lives. •    Sending representatives to eighth-grade promotion ceremonies to reach out to students and parents. •    Establishing a   STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) Academy summer day camp for middle school students on the UCR campus to expose them to the wonders of college.

The School of Education is approaching the initiative with a sense of urgency because of a disparity in the number of Inland students who don’t take the classes they need to go to a state university, Spencer said.

Less than half—48%—of Inland Empire high school graduates in 2023 completed the coursework they would need to apply for college in the University of California and California State University systems, according to Growing Inland Achievement , an Inland Empire educational collaborative group, which includes UCR. Inland graduates lagged their peers in Los Angeles and Orange counties, where 60% and 57%, respectively, completed such coursework.

What’s more, Inland Empire minoritized students fared worse than their white and Asian peers, with only 41% and 44% of African American and Hispanic students, respectively, completing college prep classes with a “C” grade or better to be considered for UC or CSU admissions.

The Middle School Initiative works to increase those numbers. It is a broad umbrella events and activities to help young people develop stronger academic identities and defeat systems and structures that inhibit their access to education, Spencer said.

“We know that young people begin to define themselves at this age, but they also begin to be defined by society,” Spencer said. “Maybe some people see you as a football kid. And that's okay. But could you also be a football kid and a science kid?”

The STEAM Academy will run this summer as a pilot program for two weeks between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the UCR campus with slots for 60 students. The students will be broken into smaller groups or “pods,” each led by UCR undergraduate and graduate student mentors.

“They will be exposed to a really rich and super interactive series of experiences in visual mathematics, engineering, and of all kinds of science and arts,” Spencer said.

Participating families will not be charged. The students are being recruited through Inland Empire school districts. Spencer expects the academy to grow in the coming years and to be offered to as many as 120 middle school students.

“Students and families need to know we are here, and we're thinking about what's coming next for them,” Spencer said.  

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a middle school hallway in Charlottesville, Virginia, a pair of sixth grade girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a lime-green settee, creating comic strips that chronicled a year of pandemic schooling. 

Using a computer program called Pixton, they built cartoon panels, one of a girl waving goodbye to her teacher, clueless that it would be months before they were back in the classroom; another of two friends standing six feet apart from one another, looking sad. 

“We have to social distance,” explained Ashlee. Then, as if remembering, she scooted a few inches away from her friend, Anna. 

In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades 6 to 8 worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session. 

Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation.  

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments.” Chad Ratliff, principal of Community Lab School

Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In the mornings, students work independently on their projects; in the afternoons, they practice math skills and take electives.  

“Our day revolves around giving students choice,” said Stephanie Passman, the head teacher. “We want kids to feel a sense of agency and that this is a place where their ideas will be heard.” 

As a laboratory for the Albemarle district, Community Lab School is charged with testing new approaches to middle school that could be scaled to the district’s five comprehensive middle schools. The school has been held up as a national model by researchers at MIT and the University of Virginia, which is studying how to better align middle school with the developmental needs of adolescents. 

Over the last 20 years, scientists have learned a lot about how the adolescent brain works and what motivates middle schoolers. Yet a lot of their findings aren’t making it into classroom practice. That’s partly because teacher prep programs haven’t kept pace with the research, and partly because overburdened teachers don’t have the time to study and implement it.  

Today, some 70 years after reformers launched a movement to make the middle grades more responsive to the needs of early adolescents, too many middle schools continue to operate like mini high schools, on a “cells and bells” model, said Chad Ratliff, the principal of Community Lab School. 

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments,” said Ratliff. “A bell rings, and you have three minutes to shuffle to the next thing.” 

For many early adolescents — and not a few of their teachers — middle school isn’t about choice and agency, “it’s about surviving,” said Melissa Wantz, a former educator from California, with more than 20 years’ experience.  

Now, as schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers , reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive.  

“This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. 

The Adolescent Brain  

Scientists have long known that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and the age of 3 than at any other time in life. But recent advances in brain imaging have revealed that a second spurt occurs during early adolescence, a phase generally defined as spanning ages 11 to 14 .  

Though the brain’s physical structures are fully developed by age 6, the connections among them take longer to form. Early adolescence is when much of this wiring takes place. The middle school years are also what scientists call a “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, when the brain is primed to learn from social cues.  

While the plasticity of the teenage brain makes it vulnerable to addiction, it also makes it resilient, capable of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity, according to a report recently published by the National Academies of Science. This makes early adolescence “a window of opportunity,” a chance to set students on a solid path for the remainder of their education, said Ronald Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Meanwhile, new findings in developmental psychology are shedding a fresh light on what motivates middle schoolers.  

Related: Four new studies bolster the case for project-based learning  

Adolescents, everyone knows, crave connections to their peers and independence from their parents. But they also care deeply about what adults think. They want to be taken seriously and feel their opinions count. And though they’re often seen as selfish, middle schoolers are driven to contribute to the common good, psychologists say. 

“They’re paying attention to the social world and one way to learn about the social world is to do things for others,” said Andrew Fuligni, a professor-in-residence in UCLA’s psychology department. “It’s one way you figure out your role in it.” 

So, what does this evolving understanding of early adolescence say about how middle schools should be designed? 

First, it suggests that schools should “capitalize on kids’ interest in their peers” through peer-assisted and cooperative learning , said Elise Capella, an associate professor of applied psychology and vice dean of research at New York University. “Activating positive peer influence is really important,” she said.  

Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate.  

“Kids have deeper cognitive conversations when they’re with their friends than when they’re not,” said Lydia Denworth, a science writer who wrote a book on friendship, in a recent radio interview . 

Schools should also take advantage of the “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, setting aside time to teach students the skills and mindsets that will help them succeed in high school and beyond, researchers say . 

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old.” Peter Gray, Boston College

Yet many schools are doing the opposite of what the research recommends. Though many teachers make use of group learning, they often avoid grouping friends together, fearing they’ll goof off, said Denworth. And middle schools often spend less time on social and emotional learning than elementary schools , sometimes seeing it as a distraction from academics . 

Meanwhile, many middle schools have abolished recess, according to Phyllis Fagell, author of the book “ Middle School Matters ”, leaving students with little unstructured time to work on social skills. 

“When you think about the science of adolescence, the traditional model of middle school runs exactly counter to what students at that age really need,” said Ratliff. 

A Developmental “Mismatch”  

The notion that middle schools are misaligned with the needs and drives of early adolescents is hardly a new one. Efforts to reimagine education for grades 6 to 8 dates back to the 1960s, when an education professor, William Alexander , called for replacing junior highs with middle schools that would cater to the age group. 

Alexander’s “Middle School Movement” gained steam in the 1980s, when Jacquelynne Eccles, a research scientist, posited that declines in academic achievement and engagement in middle school were the result of a mismatch between adolescents and their schools — a poor “ stage-environment fit. ” 

Propelled by Eccles’ theory, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included interdisciplinary team teaching, cooperative learning, block scheduling and advisory programs. 

But while a number of schools adopted at least some of the proposed reforms, many did so only superficially. By the late ’90s, policymakers’ attention had shifted to early childhood education and the transition to college, leaving middle school as “the proverbial middle child — the neglected, forgotten middle child,” said Fagell. 

For many students, the transition from elementary to middle school is a jarring one, Fagell said. Sixth graders go from having one teacher and a single set of classmates to seven or eight teachers and a shifting set of peers. 

“At the very point where they most need a sense of belonging, that is exactly when we take them out of school, put them on a bus, and send them to a massive feeder school,” said Fagell. 

And at a time when their circadian rhythms are shifting to later sleep and wake times, sixth graders often have to start school earlier than they did in elementary school. 

No wonder test scores and engagement slump. 

Related: Later school start time gave small boost to grades but big boost to sleep, new study finds  

In an effort to recapture some of the “community” feel of an elementary school, many schools have created “advisory” programs, in which students start their day with a homeroom teacher and small group of peers.  

Some schools are trying a “teams” approach, dividing grades into smaller groups that work with their own group of instructors. And some are doing away with departmentalization altogether. 

At White Oak Middle School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, roughly a third of sixth graders spend half their day with one teacher, who covers four subjects. Peter Crable, the school’s assistant principal until recently, said the approach deepens relationships among students and between students and teachers.  

“It can be a lot to ask kids to navigate different dynamics from one class to the next,” said Crable, who is currently a principal intern in another school. When their classmates are held constant, “students have each other’s backs more,” he said. 

“Don’t go back to the old normal.” Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success

A study of the program now being used at White Oak, dubbed “Project Success,” found that it had a positive effect on literacy and eliminated the achievement gap between poorer students and their better-off peers.  

But scaling the program up has proven difficult, in part because it goes against so many established norms. Most middle school teachers were trained as content-area specialists and see themselves in that role. It can take a dramatic mind shift — and hours of planning — for teachers to adjust to teaching multiple subjects.  

Robert Dodd, who came up with Project Success when he was principal of Argyle Middle School, also in Silver Spring, said he’d hoped to expand it district-wide. So far, though, only White Oak has embraced it. (Dodd is now principal of the district’s Walt Whitman High School.) 

“Large school systems have a way of snuffing out innovation,” he said. 

Even Argyle Middle, where the program started, has pressed pause on Project Success. 

“Teachers felt like it was elementary school,” said James Allrich, the school’s current principal. “I found myself forcing them to do it, and it doesn’t work if it’s forced.” 

Restoring recess, and other pandemic-era innovations  

But Argyle is continuing to experiment, in other ways. This fall, when students were studying online, the district instituted an hour-and-a-half “wellness break” in the middle of the day. Allrich kept it when 300 of the students returned in the spring, rotating them between lunch, recess and “choice time” every 30 minutes. 

During one sixth grade recess at the end of the school year, clusters of students played basketball and soccer, while one girl sat quietly under a tree, gazing at a cicada that had landed on her hand. Only three students were scrolling on their phones. 

“I thought when we got back, students would be all over their cellphones,” said Allrich, over the loud hum of cicadas. “But we see little of that. Kids really want to engage each other in person.” 

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College who has found a relationship between the decline of free play and the rise of mental illness in children and teens, wishes more middle schools would bring back recess. 

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” he said. 

Allrich said he plans to continue recess in the fall, when all 1,000 students are back in person, but acknowledges the scheduling will be tricky. 

Related:  How four middle schoolers are struggling through the pandemic  

Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success, a school reform nonprofit, hopes schools will stick with some of the other changes they made to their schedules during the pandemic, including later start times. “Don’t go back to the old normal,” Pope implored educators during a recent conference . “The old normal wasn’t healthy.” 

Prior to the pandemic, barely a fifth of middle schools followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. (Community Lab School started at 10 during the shutdown, but plans to return to a 9:30 a.m. start.) 

But if the pandemic ushered in some potentially positive changes to middle schools, it also disrupted some of the key developmental milestones of early adolescence, such as autonomy-building and exploring the world. Stuck at home with their parents and cut off from their peers, teens suffered increased rates of anxiety and depression.  

When students return to middle schools en masse this fall, they may need help processing the stress and trauma of the prior year and a half, said author Fagell, who is a counselor in a private school in Washington, D.C. 

Fagell suggests schools survey students to find out what they need, or try the “iceberg exercise,” in which they are asked what others don’t see about them, what they keep submerged.  

“We’re going to have to dive beneath the surface,” she said. 

Deutsche, of Youth-Nex in Virginia, said teachers will play a key role in “helping students trust the world again.” 

“Relationships with teachers will be even more important,” she said. 

Fortunately, there are more evidence-based social-emotional programs for middle schoolers than there used to be, according to Justina Schlund, senior director of Content and Field Learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. A growing number of states are adopting Pre-K through12 social and emotional learning standards or guidelines and many districts and schools are implementing social and emotional learning throughout all grades, she said. 

At Community Lab School, middle school students typically score above average on measures of emotional well-being and belonging, according to Shereen El Mallah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who tracks the school’s outcomes. Though the Community Lab students experienced an increase in perceived stress during the pandemic, they generally fared better than their peers at demographically similar schools, she said.   

Anna and Ashlee, the sixth graders on the settee, said the school’s close-knit community and project-based approach set it apart. 

“We’re still learning as much as anyone else, they just make it fun, rather than making us read from textbooks all the time,” Ashlee said.  

This story about early adolescents was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .  

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Why children with disabilities are missing school and losing skills

Cory Turner

On a recent school day in Del Norte County, Calif., in one of the state's northernmost school districts, 17-year-old Emma Lenover sits at home on the couch.

In some ways, Emma is a typical teen. She loves Disneyland and dance class. But she has already faced more adversity than some classmates will in a lifetime.

"All of October and all of November, there was no school because there was no aide" says Emma's mother, Melony Lenover, leaning her elbows into the kitchen table.

Emma has multiple health conditions, including cerebral palsy. She uses a wheelchair, a feeding tube and is nonverbal. To communicate, she uses a special device, like an iPad, that speaks a word or phrase when she presses the corresponding button. She is also immunocompromised and has mostly done school from home this year, over Zoom, with help from an aide in the classroom. At least, that's what was supposed to happen.

Listen: How staff shortages lead to students with disabilities missing school

Students with disabilities are missing school because of staff shortages.

Melony Lenover says her daughter's special education plan with the district guarantees her a dedicated, one-on-one aide. But the district is in the throes of a special education staffing crisis. In the fall, without an aide, Emma had to stop school. As a result, she missed out on the dance and art classes she loves and regressed on her communication device.

The fact that a district could struggle so mightily with special education staffing that students are missing school – that's not just a Del Norte problem. A recent federal survey of school districts across the U.S. found special education jobs were among the hardest to staff – and vacancies were widespread. But what's happening in Del Norte is extreme. Which is why the Lenovers and five other families are suing the school district , as well as state education leadership, with help from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

Shots - Health News

'i'm not safe here': schools ignore federal rules on restraint and seclusion.

The California Department of Education says it cannot comment on pending litigation.

"It's very, very, very, very difficult when we are trying to bring people on board, trying to provide these services, when we want the best that we can give – cause that's our job – and we can't," says Del Norte Superintendent Jeff Harris. Harris says he cannot comment on the lawsuit, but acknowledges the staffing crisis in Del Norte is very real.

Emma Lenover, left, works through a literacy lesson at home with special education teacher Sarah Elston. Emma loves these visits and, on this day, waited anxiously at the picture window for Elston to arrive. Cory Turner/NPR hide caption

Emma Lenover, left, works through a literacy lesson at home with special education teacher Sarah Elston. Emma loves these visits and, on this day, waited anxiously at the picture window for Elston to arrive.

In December, after the lawsuit was filed, district special educator Sarah Elston told the local Wild Rivers Outpost : "Just a few days ago I had two or three [aides] call out sick, they weren't coming to work, and so this starts my morning at 5:30 having to figure out who's going to be with this student... It is constant crisis management that we do in special education today."

Del Norte's isolation makes it more difficult to hire needed staff

The district sits hidden away like a secret between Oregon, the frigid Pacific and some of the largest redwood trees in the world. It's too isolated and the pay is not competitive enough, Harris says, to attract workers from outside Del Norte. Locally, these aides – like the one Emma requires – earn about as much as they would working at McDonald's.

Students with disabilities have a right to qualified teachers — but there's a shortage

Harris has even tried hiring contractors from Oregon. But "it's a two-hour drive from southern Oregon here," Harris says, "so four hours of the paid contract time was not even serving students."

The district's hiring process is also too burdensome, according to Harris, taking weeks to fill a job. Hoping to change that, the district declared a special education staffing state of emergency earlier this school year, but the problem remains.

In April, the district still had more than 40 special education job openings posted.

Melony Lenover says she knows supporting Emma can be challenging. But decades ago, Congress made clear, through the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , that her daughter is legally entitled to that support.

The federal government said it would cover 40% of the cost of providing special education services, but it has never come close to fulfilling that promise. In 2023, the National Association of Elementary School Principals said , "Since the law was enacted, the closest the federal government has come to reaching the 40 percent commitment was 18 percent in 2004-2006, and current funding is at less than 13 percent."

All this leaves Melony Lenover chafing at what she considers a double standard for children with disabilities.

"If it'd been one of my typically-functioning kids who are not in school for two months, [the school district] would be coming after me," Lenover says.

In many places, a child who has missed about 18 school days – far less than Emma – is considered chronically absent. It's a crisis that triggers a range of emergency interventions. Lenover says Emma's absences weren't treated with nearly the same urgency.

While Emma Lenover still doesn't have a dedicated aide, she is finally getting help.

"We said as a team, enough is enough," says Sarah Elston, who is Emma's special education teacher. "We're gonna do whatever it takes to get this girl an education."

Elston has been working with her high school principal to patch together as much help as they can for Emma, including shifting a classroom aide to help Emma participate in one of her favorite classes remotely, dance.

How the staffing shortage can become dangerous

Linda Vang is another plaintiff in the Del Norte lawsuit, alongside Emma Lenover's parents. On a recent Thursday, she sits at her kitchen table, her back to a refrigerator covered with family photos. She grips her phone hard, like a lifeline, watching old videos of her son, Shawn.

Schools are struggling to hire special education teachers. Hawaii may have found a fix

The cell phone videos show a young boy with a broad smile, being urged by his mother to pull up his socks. Or being taught by his doting sister to ride a scooter. Or dressed up for what appears to be a wedding, and doing the chicken dance. He is a joyful kid.

Much has changed since then.

Shawn is a pseudonym, chosen by Vang and his attorneys in the lawsuit. We're not using his real name because Shawn is a minor and his mother asked us to protect his identity.

To understand Shawn's role in the lawsuit – and the depths of Del Norte's staffing crisis – you have to understand what happened to him on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023.

He was 15 at the time. Shawn has autism and is nonverbal, and as part of his special education plan, he gets his own, dedicated aide at school. But again, because of Del Norte's struggles to hire enough special education staff, those aides are often in short supply and undertrained.

Shawn's lead teacher that day, Brittany Wyckoff, says, when he grew frustrated in class, his fill-in aide did not follow procedure. It was snack time, but "this staff said, 'No, you're not being calm' and pulled [the snack] away. So that wasn't the appropriate way to handle it."

Another staff member later told police Shawn had begun to calm down, but the aide still wouldn't give him the snack – pistachios. Instead, Wyckoff says, the aide used a firm tone and continued telling Shawn to calm down. Shawn got more agitated, hitting himself in the face.

The aide later told police he began to worry Shawn might try to bite him – because Shawn had bitten other staff before. Witnesses told police he warned Shawn, "You will not bite me. You will not bite me."

Wyckoff says standard procedure, when a student gets agitated and potentially violent, is to move classroom furniture – a table, a desk – between your body and the student. Instead, Wyckoff says, this aide moved furniture out of the way. When Shawn moved toward the aide, unobstructed, the aide raised his hands.

"The staff member just instantly reached out and choked [Shawn]," Wyckoff remembers. "And full-on, like one hand over the other hand choke."

Multiple staff told police, Shawn had not tried to bite the aide. Wyckoff says she was yelling at the aide to stop and finally pulled him off of Shawn, "who was turning purple."

How the incident led to missed school

The aide left school after choking Shawn and went to a local bar for a beer, according to the police report. He later told police he'd acted in self-defense. When he was arrested, for child endangerment, and asked why he hadn't called police himself, the aide said, because he'd been in many similar situations and didn't think this rose to that level.

The district attorney ultimately chose not to file charges.

Emma, left, works with her sister, Kelsey Mercer, to join one of her favorite school classes, dance, from home. Cory Turner/NPR hide caption

Emma, left, works with her sister, Kelsey Mercer, to join one of her favorite school classes, dance, from home.

Linda Vang says the incident changed Shawn. He became less trusting and was scared to return to the classroom. "It is the hardest thing in my life to watch my son go through this."

To make matters worse, after the incident, the school couldn't provide Shawn with a new aide, and, like Emma Lenover, he couldn't do school without one. After the encounter, he was forced to miss two months of school – because of the staffing crisis.

"It was just week after week, them telling us, 'There's no staff. There's no staff,' " Vang remembers. "I feel for him. I'm angry for him. I'm upset for him. It's hard."

Again, Superintendent Jeff Harris can't comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, or on the incident involving Shawn, but he defends the district.

"We don't come in everyday going, 'How can we mess with people's lives?' We come in every day going, 'What can we do today to make this work?' "

Shawn, like Emma, lost skills during his time away from school. His mother says he struggled more to control his behavior and was less willing to use his communication device.

Shawn is back at school and finally improving, Vang says. He even likes the aide he has now.

"It has been very hard the last year. But you know, we're getting there. You know, I'm doing my best, every single day."

With inadequate staff, students can lose vital skills

Wyckoff, Shawn's former teacher, says the staff shortage is so acute that some aides are being hired with little to no special education experience.

"They could know absolutely nothing about working with a student with special needs," Wyckoff says, "and [the district] is like 'Hey, you've gotta work with the most intensively behaviorally challenging student. Good luck!'"

After Months Of Special Education Turmoil, Families Say Schools Owe Them

Wyckoff says the staff the district is able to hire need more and better training, too. The stakes are just too high.

Superintendent Harris says the district does provide staff training, but he also has to balance that with the need to get staff into classrooms quickly.

Veteran special education staff in Del Norte tell NPR they've seen what happens when students with disabilities don't get consistent, quality support: They lose skills.

"One particular student, he was doing well," says Emily Caldwell, a speech-language pathologist in the district. "We were talking about removing his communication device from coming to school because he's communicating verbally."

Caldwell works with many students who, like Shawn and Emma, use a communication device. This student, though, had been learning to use his own voice. It was a big deal, Caldwell says. But the student began losing those skills as he was shuffled between inexperienced staff.

Emma, right, communicates with her sisters Ashley Lenover, left, and Kelsey Mercer using body language and a special tablet device. Cory Turner/NPR hide caption

Emma, right, communicates with her sisters Ashley Lenover, left, and Kelsey Mercer using body language and a special tablet device.

Now, "he's not communicating verbally at school anymore, he's only using his device and only when prompted," Caldwell says.

"I have a student whose toileting skills have regressed," says Sarah Elston, Emma's teacher. "I have more than one student who have lost skills on their [communication] device, that is their only way of communicating with the world."

This sense of loss, Elston says, keeps her up at night.

Superintendent Jeff Harris acknowledges the effects of the staffing crisis have been painful.

"When you have a child who can't do something that they were able to do before because they don't have that consistency, that's hard. I mean, that's a knife to the heart."

Looking forward

The lawsuit against the Del Norte Unified School District and state education officials is ongoing. The families hope it will not only help their children, but also raise awareness around a crisis they know is larger than themselves – and larger than Del Norte.

In the meantime, Del Norte teachers are doing everything they can to support their students with disabilities.

Elston, Wyckoff and Caldwell all say they have raised alarms with the district around students not getting the support they're entitled to – and even being mistreated by untrained or inexperienced staff.

Caldwell says some veteran staff have quit out of frustration. Though she insists, she's staying.

"I just worry," Caldwell says, tearing up. "The kids I work with, most of them don't communicate effectively without support. And so they can't go home and be like, 'Hey, Mom, so-and-so held me in a chair today.' And so I feel like, if I wasn't there and if I wasn't being that voice and that advocate, who would be?"

Digital story edited by: Nicole Cohen Audio stories produced by: Lauren Migaki Audio stories edited by: Nicole Cohen and Steve Drummond Visual design and development by: LA Johnson

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Pennsylvania school district’s decision to cut song from student concert raises concerns

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ROARING SPRING, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania school district’s decision to remove a song from a recent student choral concert has divided the community and spurred a review by a civil rights group.

“ Lift Every Voice And Sing ,” a late-19th century hymn sometimes referred to as the Black national anthem, was among several songs that were to be performed during the May 7 show by the Spring Cove Middle School chorus. The Altoona Mirror reported that district officials cut the song the day before the concert, saying students had voiced concerns about the song and the “divisiveness and controversy in the nation.”

The district also received several calls from people regarding the song and its inclusion in the concert, officials said. This raised concerns about potential disruptions at the show.

School Board President Troy Wright called the decision a “lose-lose situation” and said parents were threatening to pull their children from the concert over the song.

“We can’t make everyone happy,” Wright told the newspaper. “We have to do the balancing act between who supports it and who doesn’t support it, and our job is trying to find the balance between it.”

The decision to cut the song was made by District Superintendent Betsy Baker and Middle School Principal Amy Miller. Baker said “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was one of many songs selected for the chorus by the music teachers who “picked songs that they felt were appropriate.” Because the chorus practiced other songs, one of those was picked to fill the slot.

“We wanted everyone to feel comfortable,” Baker told the newspaper, saying the decision to cut the song was “clearly a divisive issue here” and stressing that race had nothing to do with the decision.

“There was no right decision, but we focused on letting all of the kids participate in the concert,” Baker said.

Stephen Hershberger, whose son was among the students performing in the chorus concert, was among residents who criticized the decision.

“Cutting the song just sends the message that a few individuals’ discomfort outweighs the perspective and care and concern of minority students and others who don’t have the same beliefs as them,” Hershberger told the newspaper.

The Blair County NAACP has said it executive board will proceed with a formal investigation into the district’s decision, the newspaper reported.