Honig Cites Junior Highs’ Critical Role for Students

California’s junior highs and middle schools are the “stepchildren” of education, but efforts are being made to help them, Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, said in Orange County on Wednesday.

Honig was in the county to dedicate Masuda Demonstration Middle School in Fountain Valley, a new “partnership education” project between the Fountain Valley School District and Cal State Long Beach.

In an interview, Honig said that while he is pleased that Fountain Valley is producing what could be a “model middle school,” he is worried about the general condition of middle schools and junior highs elsewhere in the state.

Report Upcoming

Honig said a report on middle schools by a state task force, due in September, is expected to make several major recommendations for improvement.

“Our test scores of students go up to the sixth grade, then they fall off sharply by the eighth grade,” Honig said. “Those years are very important ones. They are years when kids are deciding who they want to be. We need to help the school districts find the reasons grades are going down in the middle schools and junior highs.”

The scores Honig referred to are results of the annual California Assessment Program (CAP) tests, which measure ability in reading, writing, math and science. The task force was appointed to find out why CAP scores from middle schools have been declining and to suggest remedies.

“The task force is concluding its work, and I think they are coming to a pretty strong conclusion: You’ve got to have academic integrity in the middle schools,” Honig said. “You have to provide these students with literature, science, biography--let them know what they can be out there. But at the same time, you have to have a personal connection at that age. You can’t just have a mini-high school, where they’re going from one classroom to another. Because they’ll get (academically) lost, especially the boys.

Special Teams Used

“We’re finding that the most successful junior highs combine high academic expectations and a strong liberal arts curriculum” and use special teams of teachers working closely with students.

Honig said the evidence suggests that whether a school includes sixth, seventh and eighth grades or only seventh and eighth is not as important as how the faculty acts in those schools. “It’s not patterns, it’s what goes on inside of those schools,” he said.

“It’s how the faculty works together. Are connections being made with kids? Do they write much in school? Do they read? Are there institutional demands?”

Accountability Sought

Honig said that improvement of junior highs and middle schools is one of his goals in making public schools “more accountable to the public.”

Honig is seeking reelection to a second four-year term in the June election. He said he hopes to win with at least 60% of the vote to show that he still has a mandate for continuing educational reform in the state.

“A win with only 52% or so of the vote would mean the wind is out of the sails and the bloom is off the rose,” he said.