Student Mobility and Local School Improvement in Chicago

In the typical Chicago elementary school, only 50% of its students remain enrolled in the school over a three-year period. Residential changes account for the majority of these moves, but over two-fifths are school-related. Many students move within a small network of schools connected by geography, racial/ethnic composition, and poverty. Chicago’s Staying Put project aims to increase awareness of the impact of mobility through parent brochures explaining rights and responsibilities, as well as support materials for teachers and administrators. A Comprehensive Community Schools initiative, with broader aims, opens school buildings beyond the school day and extends resources to families ranging from medical care to other social services. The standard portrait of school life consists of a group of students assembled each fall to learn together for the next nine months. Teachers support and evaluate students’ progress throughout the year. Evidence of the students’ growth and achievement contributes to planning for and the transition to the following year. For the urban administrator and teacher, though, this portrait is chaotic. Students are mobile-entering and exiting throughout the year. Schools are too often unstable places where the movement of students penetrates the central aspect of their work-the interaction of teachers and students around learning. The potential consequences of student mobility are numerous. They range from the immediate, such as interruption of students’ learning as they change schools, to the less obvious, including disruption of classroom routines and school planning over time. Viewed from this perspective, student mobility creates a complex matrix of issues that span student achievement, classroom instruction, and school organization. Surprisingly, however, the topic tends to fade from the policy agenda as discussion turns toward reform initiatives and school restructuring. Mobility becomes a background condition to which schools must adjust rather than a policy concern that may need to be addressed directly-either at the school or district level. Data from the Chicago Public Schools provides a specific context to explore these issues, and their implications should be instructive for other moderate-to-large urban (and increasingly suburban) districts (see Kerbow, 1996, for detailed analysis). POTENTIAL DISRUPTION OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION In the typical Chicago elementary school, only 50% of its students are still enrolled in the school after a three-year period (Kerbow, 1996). In more extreme cases, as few as one-third of the same students remain in the school. These schools, in many ways, are no longer the same organizations. They may have the same physical building and same grade-level structure, but their most essential feature-the student body-has almost completely changed. Schools and school districts, however, generally do not look at the longitudinal trends related to student turnover. Their focus is immediate-where to place the five new students this week or how to deal with the behavioral issues of a new student who is disrupting a classroom. As school life progresses, the potential long-term consequences of these immediate concerns are often blurred. Although schools address new students’ needs in different ways, often absent is a systematic approach that might be considered an organizational response. Almost by default, the majority of the responsibility falls to the classroom teacher. The new arrivals are accompanied by limited information about their past performance or current needs. Teachers cope in various ways to the high levels of student instability in classrooms. For instance, teachers increase review of materials for the benefit of the new student. Slowing down the curricular pace, however, decreases the opportunity to learn for all students, not only those who are changing schools. In fact, for the Chicago schools with higher student mobility, compared to more stable schools, the curricular pace in math begins to slow progressively.