“Minority students are more likely to change schools frequently, although there has been improvement. There was little change in the gap.” That’s the conclusion of the Educational Testing Services report on factors that influence learning and are outside the control of schools.
“The (GAO) study reported that 41 percent of these frequent school changers were below grade level in reading and 33 percent were below grade level in math, compared with 26 percent and 17 percent, respectively, of students who had never changed schools.”
“In addition to lower achievement, a study by Christopher Swanson and Barbara Schneider found that mobility during elementary school increases the odds of dropping out of high school.” “The good news is that throughout the 1990s, the rate of changing schools declined…” , though the NAEP study this is from dropped that question in 2000 and we have no new data from them since then.
The Census Bureau reports that in 2000, 11.4 of whites moved in the previous year, as opposed to 9.9 in 2006. For Hispanics, it was 15.3 and 12.9. And for Blacks it was 17.5 and 16.2. While that’s the trend we want to see, the ethnic minority impact is clear.
Not only are school unable to impact this issue directly, but the difficulty in obtaining student data under these circumstances makes it hard to focus attention on the specific needs of students in a timely manner.
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