Patterns of Student Mobility among English Language Learner Students in Arizona Public Schools. Summary. Issues & Answers. REL 2010-No. 093.
Issues & Answers is an ongoing series of reports from short-term Fast Response Projects conducted by the regional educational laboratories on current education issues of importance at local, state, and regional levels. Fast Response Project topics change to reflect new issues, as identified through lab outreach and requests for assistance from policymakers and educa-tors at state and local levels and from communities, businesses, parents, families, and youth. All Issues & Answers reports meet Institute of Education Sciences standards for scientifically valid research. views or policies
Reducing School Mobility
Student turnover has many negative consequences for students and schools, and the high mobility rates of disadvantaged students may exacerbate inequality. Scholars have advised schools to reduce mobility by building and improving relationships with and among families, but such efforts are rarely tested rigorously. A cluster-randomized field experiment in 52 predominantly Hispanic elementary schools in San Antonio, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, tested whether student mobility in early elementary school was reduced through Families and Schools Together (FAST), an intervention that builds social capital among families, children, and schools. FAST failed to reduce mobility overall but substantially reduced the mobility of Black students, who were especially likely to change schools. Improved relationships among families help explain this finding.
Geographic Mobility and School Attainment The Confounding Variables
Summary The relationship between geographic mobility and educational attainment is revealed as a complex problem, inadequately researched and only partly understood. The simple assumption made by many speakers in the Great Debate that more geographic mobility necessarily means an impairment of academic attainment can be shown to be erroneous. The direct effect of mobility is likely to be small and be itself affected by the social context and reasons for mobility. The frequently researched example of military families is examined, and shown to be a special case from which it is dangerous to generalize. The article points to the need for carefully designed longitudinal studies in this area, and, as a first step, suggests the exploitation of already existing data in the National Child Development Study.