What is it about?
Students move schools for many reasons, including that they are often mandated to move from elementary to middle school. We find that even these mandated moves, that many students make, have negative consequences for their test score performance both in the short and medium term. Moreover, other moves that are not mandated may have positive impacts if students begin their new school at the beginning of the grade span (for example if they leave a K-5 school in 4th grade and enter a 5-8 school in 5th grade).
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Why is it important?
School districts need to think about how their schools are organized. It is possible that K-8 schools could work well to cut down on the bump down in test scores at the move to middle school. Policies to help students when they transition could be helpful as well. Finally, busing policies that allow students to stay in school even when parents move residence could help.
Perspectives
I enjoyed writing this with my long-time colleague and one of our new doctoral student graduates. The teamwork is really gratifying. Also, this work brings together previous work on school organization and mobility and it is somewhat surprising to me that there is a negative effect of moving to middle school. I would think that many parents would advocate with their school boards to have more help for students at that transition or to experiment with K-8 schools.
Leanna Stiefel
New York University
It is really exciting to see this article in print after a really rewarding collaboration with two of my graduate school mentors. I think parents and other education stakeholders often assume that the moves built-in to school systems, like those from elementary to middle school, are there for a reason and should ultimately benefit kids, but we show otherwise here.
Sarah Cordes
Temple University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Moving Matters: The Causal Effect of Moving Schools on Student Performance, Education Finance and Policy, October 2017, The MIT Press,
DOI: 10.1162/edfp_a_00198.
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