Project Activities
The research team explored a unique longitudinal student-level data set coming from the Project CORE initiative, a group of districts that have formed to collaborate on data collection and analysis for continuous improvement. These districts have embraced systematic measurement of social-emotional learning and school culture and climate in systems of school accountability. The research team used 13 years of CORE district data to conduct exploratory analyses of the incidence and consequences of student mobility for vulnerable student populations.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The study used longitudinal data collected in the California CORE districts of Los Angeles, Oakland, Fresno, Long Beach, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana, which include primarily urban schools but also contain some suburban and rural schools.
Sample
The longitudinal sample comprises all kindergarten to grade 12 students (about 900,000) in the 6 CORE districts in California and includes several million student-level observations from the 2010-2011 school year through the 2022-2023 school year.
For this exploration study, malleable factors included school policies (discipline and school choice), school culture and climate, and students' social-emotional learning skills and behavior.
Research design and methods
The research team used secondary data to conduct exploratory analyses of the incidence and consequences of student mobility for vulnerable student populations. They used descriptive statistics to understand mobility patterns in this sample. They tracked student outcomes before and after moves, distinguishing among moves of different types—structural, non-structural, voluntary, involuntary—comparing school changers to stayers. Since mobility could have positive effects in some situations and negative effects in others, the research team accounted for the timing and reasons why students change schools and identified variation in the incidence and consequences of mobility across vulnerable and other demographic groups. They also used information on the characteristics and climate of the schools students leave and enter and the degree to which mobile students "match" or fit in with their environments to determine the effect of school features on the outcomes of mobile students.
Control condition
There was no control condition in this study.
Key measures
The key measures for this study included information on students' school changes, the timing and frequency of the move, as well as information on students' demographics, achievement, social-emotional learning, behaviors (such as attendance and disciplinary actions), and English learner, homeless, foster youth, and disability designations. The CORE districts also collected data on the culture and climate of schools by grade.
Data analytic strategy
The research team conducted descriptive analyses including means and frequencies of events, as well as inferential statistics such as t-tests and chi-square tests to assess whether any differences in mobility by subgroup are statistically significant. They also fit discrete time hazard models to explore whether some groups of students are more likely to change schools and whether these moves are more likely to be involuntary.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Products: The research team shared findings through annual CORE district briefings. They will develop a short policy brief for education practitioners and policy makers. They will give presentations at research and policy conferences and will also produce manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals.
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigators: Ream, Robert; Santibanez, Lucrecia
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
