Is Middle School Bad For Kids?

Observes that cities across the U.S. are switching from middle schools to Kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8) schools. How, increasingly, communities are questioning whether middle schools are the best choice for this volatile age group; Overview of the debate; Views of educators and school administrators; Reasons for the change, including crowding and cost cutting; Disadvantages of middle schools; Findings of a report by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research group; History of middle schools, including how they fell into such disrepute; Key tenets of the middle school movement; How, in urban areas, middle schools often became the antithesis of what reformers intended; Why K-8 schools are better positioned to implement the ideas of the middle school movement; Outlook.