Check out www.schoolstowatch.org for the 2010 program proposal form. In addition to presentations proposed by our 2010 new and redesignated schools, we'll accept proposals from National Forum members or friend of the National Forum. You submit electronically.

I was at the ACT No Time to Waste meeting in DC on May 27th and Bethany Little, Chief Education Counsel to Senator Kennedy and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, used the term "sea change" several times to describe the contrast of attention now being paid to secondary--middle and high school--education at the federal level. The tide does seem to have changed for the middle grades and the message is no longer that it is important yet overlooked. There is increasing acceptance… Continue

Members of the National Forum have long valued the opportunity to dialogue with like-minded colleagues and actively discuss issues confronting middle grades education.



Our Ning site affords all Forum members and now anyone who is involved in middle grades education (grades 5-8) to talk and exchange ideas. It can be the meeting place for the "thought leaders" in the field and for the teachers and principals who make middle grades education their daily life-blood.



I look… Continue

I strongly encourage middle level educators to check out the new edition of NSDC's newsletter (14 pages): "Teachers Teaching Teachers." It focuses on how school faculty and administrators can worth together to address issues of student behavior. You can access the newsletter in PDF form by going to < http://snipurl.com/hjqri >.

To date, the promise of 21st Century middle level education is a growing consensus that schools must devote equal attention to students’ academic and social-emotional development. Scratch the surface of most successful schools for young adolescents and one usually finds mutually reinforcing practices that foster academic proficiency, self-confidence, and responsibility. Achieving this balance is not easy. It takes constant vigilance, effort and fine tuning. But at long last the middle grades… Continue