Student mobility: How some children get left behind*

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 2003 by Hartman, Chester, Franke, Todd Michael

* We need to track how the new No Child Left Behind legislation is impacting school mobility and inclusion of transient students in new accountability/assessment systems.

* Similarly, systematic data are needed on how the 1996 welfare reform legislation, and upcoming revisions to that law, impact school mobility and other dimensions of children's educational experience.

* What is the experience of charter schools and voucher programs with respect to student mobility?

* Full-scale research is needed regarding the incidence and causes of classroom instability among Native American students, in tribal, Bureau of Indian Affairs, boarding, parochial, and community public schools.

* Since the school outcomes of children in foster care is not well monitored by welfare agencies, data collection systems to track this needs to be instituted.

As noted above, we intend to mount a serious effort, along many lines, to advocate for a full range of reforms to make progress on dealing with this important issue (which will include research on the above and other topics). We invite those who want further information about these follow-up activities, or want to get involved in them, to contact co-guest editor Hartman at chartman@prrac.org.

*Special thanks to Denise Rivera Portis of the PRRAC staff for providing helpful technical assistance in preparation of this issue, and to JNE Associate Editor Heather Austin who did excellent copyediting on all the articles.

1The origin of this issue was a June 2000 conference at Howard University School of Law, "High Student Mobility/Classroom Turnover: How to Address It? How to Reduce It?," convened by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. Many of the authors in this issue presented papers there, and their articles are updates of those presentations. The conference and follow-up work have been supported by grants from the George Gund, Joyce and Spencer Foundations.

REFERENCES

Demmert, W. G. Jr. (2001). Improving academic performance among Native American students: A review of the research literature. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools.

Rubinowitz, L. S., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2000). Crossing class and color lines: From public housing to White suburbia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chester Hartman

Poverty & Race Research Action Council; and Todd Michael Franke, Department of Social Welfare and the Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, University of California, Los Angeles

AUTHORS

CHESTER HARTMAN is President/Executive Director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) in Washington, DC; charrman@prrac.org. His interests include housing policy, urban planning, and the full range of issues at the intersection of race and poverty.

TODD MICHAEL FRANKE is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Welfare and the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA), and is the Associate Director of the Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities at the University of California, Los Angeles; tfranke@ucla.edu. His interests include quantitative methods and evaluation, and the impact of mobility on urban schoolchildren, their families, and the schools they attend.