ACHIEVEMENT LOSS ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRANSITION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH-SCHOOL

To explore the nature of the achievement loss associated with school-t o-school transitions from elementary school to middle school and to hi gh school, the author compared 3 groups of 16 school districts in this ex post facto study. A statistically significant achievement loss ass ociated with the transition from elementary school to middle school at 6th grade was found, as compared with K-8 schools that did not have a school-to-school transition at 6th grade. The transition loss in achi evement was larger when students from multiple elementary schools were merged into a single middle school during the transition. The student s from the middle schools and K-8 elementary schools experienced an ac hievement loss in the transition to high school at 9th grade. The achi evement loss in the transition to high school was larger for middle sc hool students than for K-8 elementary students. High school dropout ra tes were higher for districts with Grade 6-8 middle schools than for d istricts with K-8 elementary schools.