I finally had an opportunity to read “Student Transience in North Carolina: The Effect of School Mobility on Student Outcomes Using Longitudinal Data,” a CALDER/Urban Institute report released last month. (WARNING: JLF cited in the report. Boo-yah!)
Researchers followed four cohorts of 3rd graders for six years. They found that transience has a negative effect on minority student performance. Findings from the study included:
– School mobility hurt the math performance of Black and Hispanic students, but not the math performance of white students.
– School mobility improved the reading performance of white and more advantaged students, but had no effect on the reading performance of minority students.
– ?Strategic? school moves (cross-district) benefited or had no effect on student performance, but ?reactive? moves (within district) hurt all groups of students.
– White and Hispanic students were more likely to move to a higher quality school while Blacks were more likely to move to a lower quality school.
– The negative effects of school mobility increased with the number of school moves.
This is very interesting research with loads of implications for large districts like Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
