Studies regarding student mobility -- how often students switch schools -- has usually been focused on poor urban areas, but new research suggests rural student mobility may be as big a problem. A recent analysis of five states by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning suggests "in a small rural district, it takes a lot fewer kids moving around to play havoc with your staff assignment, special education supports and even course offerings," Sarah Sparks of Education Week reports on the Inside School Research blog.
High student mobility can affect individual students as they struggle to adjust to news schools and other students as teachers and administrators work to catch up new students, Sparks writes. "Andrea Beesley, McREL senior director and lead author on the report, studied state-reported student mobility data for Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming," Sparks writes. "The research team found that in Wyoming and North Dakota, rural districts had higher student mobility than did cities, though the smaller school populations in these districts may skew the sample."
"'Hotspots' of high student mobility often coincided with districts with high poverty or Native American reservations," Sparks writes. "Yet much more than that we can't tell, because each state collects and reports its data on student mobility differently: different grade levels included, different ways to include students who leave and return several times, and practically no information on where a mobile student comes from or goes to when he leaves." Beesley explained, "No two of them do it the same way. Unfortunately it leaves you in the situation where in many cases you don't understand a lot about student mobility." (Read more)
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