affordable housing crisis: Residential mobility of poor families and school mobility of poor children, The

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 2003 by Crowley, Sheila

Although people in the United States as a whole are quite mobile, race and income differentiate movers from non-movers. Members of racial minorities change residences more than White people do, and the lower a household's income, the more likely it is to move (Schachter, 2001a). This may be explained because racial minorities, especially Black and Hispanic people, and low-income people are more often renters than homeowners (Dolbeare, 2001). Renters are three times more likely than homeowners to move, with 32.5% of renters and 9.1% of homeowners moving in 1999 (Schachter, 2001a).

Although all residential changes are difficult in some fashion for children, most children and families have the resiliency to manage change without ill effects. It is the qualities and dimensions of residential mobility that determine how children will be affected. Moves that result in multiple life changes, including neighborhood and school, and that sever ties to social networks are harder for children to withstand than are simpler changes. Frequent moves or "hypermobility," defined as six or more moves during childhood (Tucker, Marx, & Long, 1998), are far more damaging than one or two well-spaced moves. Moves that are sudden or unplanned and that are the result of family disruption, such as divorce, death, or eviction, carry the most serious risk of emotional or psychological harm. Moves that the parent(s) or caregiver(s) experience as troubling, and then convey that anxiety to their children, will be more traumatic for children (Humke & Schaefer, 1995; Scanlon & Devine, 2001; Swanson & Schneider, 1999; Tucker et al., 1998).

However, residential mobility is not entirely negative for poor families. Being unable to move from dangerous or inadequate housing or neighborhoods may have serious physical and psychological consequences for all family members (Scanlon & Devine, 2001). For families with high levels of stress associated with their housing, relocation may actually bring relief, albeit temporary. In case studies of highly mobile poor families, Bartlett (1997b) found that despite all evidence to the contrary, the mothers held out hope that the next place would be the right place. When their current living situations became untenable, leaving was preferable to staying.

The adverse effect frequent residential moves that also result in changing schools has on a child's academic achievement generates considerable agreement among educators and other professionals who study child well-being (Scanlon & Devine, 2001). Controlling for other factors, movers do less well in school than nonmovers, unless the move results in a dramatic improvement in a child's access to educational resources (Pribesh & Downey, 1999). In other words, if a child is able to move to a more affluent school district or to a more well-endowed school than the school he or she is leaving, the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks. But this is an uncommon occurrence for low-income and minority students.

Poor children are more likely to "churn" (Holloway, 2000, p. A29) from one under-resourced school to another. In some poor schools, the mobility rate can be as high as 70%, meaning only 30% of the students enrolled began and ended the school year at the same school (Fowler-Finn, 2001). Mobile children must change teachers, curricula, and schoolmates. They are often behind in academic progress. Mobile students may receive poor assessments and placements, and are likely to have incomplete school records (Fisher, Matthew, Stafford, Nakagawa, & Durante, 2002). Teachers are less likely to commit themselves to students they perceive are just passing through (Astone & McLanahan, 1994), and are less likely to regard transient students as competent (Mantzicopoulos & Knutson, 2000). Transient children are more likely to have to repeat grades, to not receive needed special education, and to do less well on standardized tests than are stable students. Indeed, it is the advent of standardized tests that has heightened awareness of the consequences of high rates of school and residential mobility, as educators grapple with the impact each child's performance has on the overall rating of teachers and schools (Holloway, 2000; Rothstein, 2000).