GAO Study Shines Light on Student Mobility

About 13 percent of children in the United States change schools four or more times before enrolling in high school, and job loss, home foreclosures, and homelessness may be driving up student mobility as Americans move in search of employment or affordable housing, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The report is based on an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data from 1998 to 2007. The GAO researchers supplemented their analysis with interviews conducted in March and April with educators at eight schools in six school districts across three states. U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., requested the study of student mobility in preparation for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

“The more attention that educators, lawmakers, and government pay to mobile students, the better,” said Andrea Beesley, the senior director of assessment for Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, a federal regional educational laboratory in Denver, Colo., and the lead author of a report on student mobility. “Mobility has been associated with numerous negative education outcomes, but there haven’t been consistent efforts to...