The Negative Effects of Student Mobility: Mobility as a Predictor, Mobility as a Mediator

Policy discussions on how to improve educational outcomes have traditionally focused on schools and teachers. While schools and teachers have measurable effects on educational outcomes, reforms aimed at only improving schools and teachers have failed to eliminate persistent achievement gaps. Thus, s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of education policy and leadership Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 1 - 14
Main Author Scherrer, Jimmy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, and College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University 2012
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Achievement Gap
Child Care
Educational Change
Educational Objectives
Outcomes of Education
Peer Groups
Prediction
Predictor Variables
Reading Achievement
School Size
Social Capital
Socioeconomic Status
Statistical Analysis
Student Mobility
United States
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Summary:Policy discussions on how to improve educational outcomes have traditionally focused on schools and teachers. While schools and teachers have measurable effects on educational outcomes, reforms aimed at only improving schools and teachers have failed to eliminate persistent achievement gaps. Thus, some scholars have argued for a broader, bolder approach to education. These scholars have investigated the effect of nonschool factors, such as health and early childhood care, on educational outcomes. The present study is intended to add to this growing body of literature. Two analyses that were conducted to examine the effect of student mobility on achievement are discussed. The first uses a multi-level analysis to investigate the relationship between student mobility and reading achievement of students. The second analysis uses aggregate school-level data to investigate if student mobility mediates the relationship between a school's socioeconomic status and its academic achievement levels. The results suggest that student mobility is indeed a predictor of academic struggles--at the individual student level as well as the school level--and should be included in the increasing number of conversations aimed at changing social policies to improve student outcomes. (Contains 4 tables, 5 figures and 5 footnotes.)
ISSN:1555-5062
1555-5062