Where We Stand
By Albert Shanker
Caught in a Revolving Door
Student mobility--kids moving in and out of a school--is something 
teachers think about a lot, especially those who teach in 
poverty-stricken neighborhoods, where it can be a big problem. 
Undoubtedly the chief sufferers are the youngsters who suddenly find 
themselves in a strange class where they have no idea what's going 
on. But getting a new student or two in the middle of the year is 
also hard on the other kids in the class and on the teachers. Until 
recently, however, there has been little information on the extent 
of the problem and few real efforts to solve it.
A recent study of student mobility in Chicago elementary schools, 
which is described in the latest issue of "American Educator" 
("Kids, Schools Suffer from Revolving Door," Spring 1996), makes 
clear how serious the problem is.  At one school of about 800 
students, 170 new students enrolled between the beginning of school 
and January 31, and 198 left. In addition, 177 families brought 
children to be enrolled but transferred out before the children 
actually came to class. Of course, the problem is not this severe in 
most Chicago schools. Nevertheless, the study found that a majority 
of children--three in five--move from one school to another during 
their elementary school years; and nearly half of the moves take 
place during the school year. When researchers looked at the data 
from the school perspective,  they found that "a typical classroom 
gets an average of five new students a year."
How does this affect the education that students in these schools 
are getting? It's pretty clear what problems the kids who transfer 
in are likely to have. As the "American Educator" article puts it, 
"For many transfer students, mobility is a vicious cycle: They're 
dropped into lessons that their previous school didn't prepare them 
for." Then, because they are "starting out behind in strange 
territory, many transfer students act out, making learning still 
harder." The long-term results are just what you might fear: The 
Chicago study found that "by fourth grade, students who had switched 
schools were, on average, four months behind students who had stayed 
in the [same] school." And the more often students change schools, 
the more devastating the effect on their achievement: "Students who 
had moved four or more times were, by sixth grade, a full year behind."
But even kids who never move are affected by the arrival of new 
students who do not know the material.  Perhaps the teacher spends 
extra time with the new children, trying to catch them up, or 
perhaps she simplifies the curriculum so they can follow.  Either 
way, the other students lose. And if  there are two or three or four 
transfer students in the class--and a couple of them turn out to be 
discipline problems-- the difficulties that come from their lack of 
preparation are multiplied many times.
What can be done? One approach the article suggests is to make sure 
parents are aware of how changing schools can affect their children. 
David Schuler, the president of an apartment owners' association in 
Rochester, New York, was appalled by the turnover rate among 
children in his apartment buildings. So he organized a successful 
campaign to educate parents and help them find housing within the 
attendance boundaries if they had to move. Schools and school 
districts can do the same thing. They can also relax their rules so 
students who have moved out of their school's attendance area can 
complete the year without changing schools--a number of districts 
have already done this. And they can make sure that parents are 
aware of this flexibility. But useful though these approaches are, 
they can't really get to the heart of the problem.
What if students who moved from one school to another didn't have to 
face material that was totally unfamiliar? What if teachers knew 
that a fourth grader who came into class in January had covered 
certain topics in English? That's what would happen if we had a 
common curriculum, as they do in other industrialized nations with 
successful school systems. And it would be a boon not only for kids 
who move but for all students. Our free-and-easy approach to 
curriculum means that what fourth graders learn in a given subject 
can differ from school to school and even class to class. So 
teachers can never be sure what the students who enter their class 
know, and they have to waste precious time making sure that 
everybody is ready to start on the year's work.
The "American Educator" article says that some of the Chicago 
schools are aligning their curriculums to help ease the transition 
for transferring youngsters. They have the right idea. This is 
something we need to do for all our students.
Chuck Beams
cbeams@dreamscape.com
http://www.dreamscape.com/cbeams
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* UniQWK #5290* A mouthful of breath mints and no one to kiss.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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