By LISA FLEISHER
WSJ
Soon after he gained control of the city's public schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pushed to shut down enormous high schools and replace them with smaller schools. Now, his administration is pledging to do the same with middle schools, aiming to open at least 50 more in the next two years.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, in his first major policy speech, said Tuesday the city hopes to improve education for students in those awkward middle school years, the ones "rife with challenge," hormones and heartbreak.
Those grades have been tough for the city, too, Mr. Walcott said, pointing to sagging scores for seventh- and eighth-graders on statewide English tests. He acknowledged that the city has made attempts at reviving middle schools in the past and said this would be a "bolder and more focused" plan.
The idea expands a centerpiece of Mr. Bloomberg's education reform agenda.
In 2003, the city announced it would begin carving up its large high schools—derided for years as "dropout factories"—into smaller, often themed, schools. The effort was funded in part with $50 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Results have been mixed.
The middle school plan drew praise from some academics, who said it was important to zero in on students. But the head of the city teachers union described the effort as "rearranging the deck chairs."
"Struggling middle schools need a radical re-thinking, one that focuses on instruction and lowering class size," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.
In addition to creating smaller schools, the city wants to support new charter middle schools, including 12 set to open in 2012-13, and funnel most of the teachers hired through its Teaching Fellows program, which recruits about 450 people annually from other careers, into hard-to-staff middle schools.
The city also plans to apply for $30 million in federal funds to revamp 10 schools in the next two years through a more drastic method, which requires schools to replace at least half of its teachers and its principal.
Mr. Walcott, who took over in April, said he spent a few months touring middle schools to determine what makes them work. He singled out a few general principles, including great school leaders, strong discipline and culture, and good relationships with parents and students. He also said schools did well when teachers taught in teams, as well as when the curriculum emphasized literacy.
To that end, he said the city would spend $15 million over two years on nonfiction books for middle-schoolers. This year, the city will spend about $56 million on all textbooks for all grades.
In 2008, the city said it would put $35 million toward improving middle schools.
While Mr. Walcott said there were "lessons learned" from that effort, he did not name them and did not answer questions after his speech.
New York University professor Pedro Noguera, who led a City Council task force as part of the 2008 push, said that while he was glad to see policy directives from the chancellor, he was waiting to hear new thinking, answers and specifics.
"These are schools that have been under their leadership, under their reforms, for 10 years, now," he said. "Why haven't those reforms worked?"
Mr. Noguera said he would recommend distributing the toughest students to teach— those described as having "high needs"—throughout the system. And rather than encourage new and inexperienced teachers such as Teaching Fellows to take jobs in the schools, the city should provide incentives for the best teachers to step in, he said.
Fabienne Doucet, an assistant professor at New York University, said the city, though, should also focus on reducing the ratio of the number of teachers to students.
"Perhaps we'll see some good things come out of it," she said. "I don't know that it will necessarily fix everything, because nothing fixes everything."
