Talk to some teachers who've been around for a while, and they'll give you an ear-full about how much middle school sucks. Something happens to kids around 6th grade, probably to do with starting to value peer-approval over authority-approval, and they start getting wilder. The work gets harder. Class-switching may start that early, depending on the school. Puberty. Kids from several elementary schools are thrown in with one another, in an abruptly-much-larger class with tons of strangers. A bunch of the kids develop mental health issues. A bunch start hurting themselves or get suicidal, and attempts may be made, some with, uh, "success". Drug use begins to enter the picture. All forms of bullying, including the "mean girl" type, get way worse in a hurry. It is obviously hell for the kids.
There's a consistent and widely-observed school performance dip in about 6-8th grade. I have a feeling our usual structure for schools for those age ranges, in the US at least, is in some way fundamentally and seriously wrong.
Middle school is bad just about everywhere, not just in the US. All the teachers I've talked with (mostly in Europe) also observed the same thing. Keeping kids in school at that age is just a bad idea, and if anything that's what should be abolished completely.
High school in Europe, where there's no extracurricular activities added into the mix, is mostly fine, and kids that have a bad time there are usually just carrying mental scars from middle school.
There's a consistent and widely-observed school performance dip in about 6-8th grade. I have a feeling our usual structure for schools for those age ranges, in the US at least, is in some way fundamentally and seriously wrong.