Findings

By Debra Viadero

Teachers and administrators have worried for years about the increasing frequency with which urban students move in and out of their neighborhood schools. A new study suggests there is good reason to worry: In schools with high mobility rates, the pace of instruction slows for all students, not just the ones who are moving. David Kerbow, a researcher at the University of Chicago, surveyed 13,000 6th graders in Chicago, a district with notoriously high student mobility. At any given time in an average Chicago elementary school, only half the students have been enrolled for three years. Not surprisingly, Kerbow found that the more often elementary students move, the further they fall behind academically. By 6th grade, students who have changed schools four or more times are about a year behind those who have had more stable school careers. But Kerbow also found that in schools with high turnover, the pace of instruction for all children slows after 1st grade as teachers take time to review material for new students. By 5th grade, the researcher says, these schools are a full year behind those with more stable enrollments. Kerbow reported his findings in the June issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk . "Without a certain level of [student] stability," he writes, "it is unclear how school-based educational programs, no matter how innovative, could successfully develop...