Former First Lady Laura Bush’s keynote address at the opening session of the 2013 Building a Grad Nation Summit on February 25 in Washington, DC, focused on the Middle School Matters Institute, a joint initiative of the George W. Bush Institute and MCPER.
Her full remarks can be found on the Bush Center website. The following is an excerpt from Bush’s address:
“Through the Bush Institute’s Middle School Matters [initiative], we’re focusing on improving middle school education, so our middle school students become high school graduates. For many students, though, the middle school years are difficult. Academic struggles are compounded by self-consciousness and peer pressure. Despite the challenges of middle school, we know that middle school is the best place to prepare students for success in high school … With focused interventions, students who enter middle school struggling in core subjects can enter high school working at grade level.
“The Bush Institute, with the support of the Meadows Foundation, enlisted many of the nation’s top education researchers and practitioners to develop Middle School Matters. Experts in reading intervention; cognitive science; writing; math; advanced reasoning; school, student, family, and community support; and school leadership identified principles and practices that are proven effective for middle school students. These research-based findings are the foundation for all aspects of our Middle School Matters initiative. The Bush Institute will host a Middle School Institute for middle school educators and administrators. The first session of the Middle School Matters Institute is this summer, in partnership with The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at The University of Texas, and thanks to the generous support of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation.”
Available online is application information for the inaugural Middle School Matters Institute Summer Conference. Applications are due March 8, and all U.S. middle schools are invited to apply.