Understanding Student Mobility

The U.S. Census Bureau (2001c) reported that 4.3 million Americans moved between March 1999 and March 2000. Increased mobility is highly correlated with low family income. The majority of reasons people move are income related. Reasons for moving include finding employment, job relocation, joining family and friends, escaping high crime rates, finding better schools, homelessness, leaving substandard or unaffordable housing, difficulties with landlords, poor domestic relationships, eviction, and/or property condemnation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001d). Children in poverty and those of migrant families can find themselves switching schools often because of the sheer nature of migrant work and the tendency for low-wage earners to jump from one job to another.

Student mobility can occur in the following variety of ways:

• A student may change residence without switching to a new school (remaining in district).
• A student may change residence and subsequently change his/her school (moving into a new district).
• Many residence and school changes that result from interstate or international relocation as happened from 1999 through 2000 when more than 240,000 people moved to the Midwest from abroad (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001b).
• With greater opportunities to exercise choice among public schools, a student may change his/her school without changing residence.

The mobility that results in a school change is the greatest threat to academic achievement and the school environment (Biernat & Jax, 2000).

Families in rural communities are at an increased risk of becoming mobile especially toward more urban locales in the following ways:

• Nearly all executive- and high-ranking managerial positions tend to be in cities.
• The "single industry" nature of rural communities (e.g., agriculture, mining) limits economic flexibility when the industry, or economic stronghold, of the community is in jeopardy.
• The single industry nature threatens the rural economy with sensitivity to fluctuating manufacturing and export rates.
• There is a current trend to "move urban."
• A higher rate of poverty exists in rural communities.
• Rural workers, on average, earn four-fifths of their urban counterparts' salary.
• Economic "booms" tend to benefit urban areas, but not rural communities (Stalker, 2001).

Undoubtedly, the children of poverty-stricken families are at greatest risk on three accounts—poverty increases the risk of academic failure; mobility increases the risk of academic failure; and poverty increases the risk of frequent mobility.

Fortunately for rural students, a residential move doesn't necessarily constitute a school change. With school districts covering a large geographic area, as is common in rural communities, it is possible for a family to move several miles from their home of origin and still remain in the same school district. In these instances, the negative effect of mobility on academic achievement is greatly decreased.

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