The Relationship Between North Carolina Middle School Academic Growth And The Implementation Level Of Key Middle School Practices: A Study For Middle School Decision Makers

Abstract

Without hard data on the impact on student academic achievement, decision-makers are wary of fully implementing key middle school practices. To provide hard data for middle school decision-makers, this study was conducted. The aim of this study was to provide an accurate description of the status of middle schools in the state of North Carolina and to determine the relationship that exists between the degree of implementation of key middle school practices and student academic growth when controlling for school location, school size, student body race/ethnicity, and student body socioeconomic status.

Study findings revealed that North Carolina middle schools with grade configurations 5-8 or 6-8 that participated in this study are implementing many of the key middle school practices as outlined in middle school literature and the majority of the participating schools indicated that they have been implementing key middle school practices over five years.

In addition, two findings were identified by statistical analyses. First, analyses indicated that the implementation level and the number of years a North Carolina middle school met expected academic growth was not statistically significant. The second finding was that the degree of implementation of key middle school practices was a predictor of expected academic growth for one of the years in this study. Although other programs for that school year might have played into the North Carolina middle schools expected academic growth rates, this finding is relevant to North Carolina middle school decision makers. One year of testing data can be explored to see what key middle school practices were implemented that led to the increase of student academic achievement.