PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kelly Bedard
AU  - Chau Do
TI  - Are Middle Schools More Effective?
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.XL.3.660
DP  - 2005 Jul 01
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 660--682
VI  - XL
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XL/3/660.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XL/3/660.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2005 Jul 01; XL
AB  - While nearly half of all school districts have adopted middle schools, there is little quantitative evidence of the efficacy of this educational structure. We estimate the impact of moving from a junior high school system, where students stay in elementary school longer, to a middle school system for on-time high school completion. This is a particularly good outcome measure because middle school advocates argued that this new system would be especially helpful for lower achieving students. In contrast to the stated objective, we find that moving to a middle school system decreases on-time high school completion by approximately 1–3 percent.