The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel spent a year reporting on how and why students in Milwaukee transfer in and out of schools so frequently — and how the under-explored phenomenon contributes to a cycle of low performance. Here are the most important things to know about student churn, which is also known as turnover, transience or mobility. 

RELATED: 'I don’t want the kids to stay here and get stuck like me.'

What is student turnover?

It's what happens when students change schools for reasons other than getting promoted to the next grade in a new building. Researchers call it “student mobility.”

How does student turnover happen? 

Turnover happens in the middle of the year when students enroll in a school late or withdraw early. It can also happen in the summertime, when a child enters a new school. A “mobile student” might attend two schools in one year, or attend a new elementary school for three years in a row.

What's the impact of student turnover?

Switching schools frequently is associated with lower reading and math achievement, more behavioral problems, lower school engagement and higher dropout rates. In Milwaukee, one in four publicly funded students switch schools every year for reasons other than getting promoted to the next grade, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis of state data found. On average, students who switched between public schools and voucher schools or voucher and public schools had lower math scores a year later, according to an analysis by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

What causes student turnover?

A range of conditions inside schools, communities and families cause children to enter and leave schools. Sometimes children enroll late or withdraw before the end of the year because their families move. Poverty, joblessness, evictions, a lack of transportation and homelessness can all cause children to be transient. Often parents move their children to new schools because they're seeking something different or escaping something they don't like.

My kid has stayed in the same school. Do I need to worry?

Probably not as long as most other students are returning every year and advancing. Stable students can suffer, however, if they attend schools where a lot of their peers are moving around. Classrooms with a lot of churn operate up to a full year behind classrooms where most students stay, research shows. And if churn isn’t happening in your school, it’s important to understand that low performing schools may be doing quite well with children who stick around — but that progress might be overshadowed by the low scores of children who move.

What’s considered high turnover?

In most states that track the data, about 10 percent of students switch schools in unplanned ways.

Related: Only these states track and report figures on student turnover

How often do most kids move?

If you count normal transitions, 70 percent of students switch schools once or twice before high school, according to the same government study. About 13 percent of kids nationwide switched schools four or more times before high school, which makes them a small but concerning minority.

Does it matter when you switch schools?

Data shows switching schools frequently in elementary schools and later in high school can increase the risk of dropping out. In Milwaukee, students who attended just one high school vs. two or three high schools had graduation rates of 74 percent, 50 percent and 42 percent, respectively. Overall, about 62 percent of MPS students graduate on time.

RELATED: 5 ways to reduce student turnover right now

What about military kids? They switch schools and seem to thrive.

Actually, more attention is being paid to the specific academic needs of transient, military-connected youth. But those youth usually have built-in social supports such as two-parent households, a steady family income and college-educated parents. Those factors can insulate them from the most harmful effects of churn: low test scores and low graduation rates.

So is student turnover responsible for low achievement? Or is poverty the real culprit?

Low-income students are more than three times as likely to switch schools as their more advantaged peers, so researchers have a hard time separating the academic impact of school-switching from the academic impact of poverty. But models run by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh on data obtained by the university and the Journal Sentinel control for those factors and find that on average, students who switched schools in Milwaukee had lower math scores in the year after they switched. The same finding applied to students who switched between virtual and brick-and-mortar schools.

Is there any benefit to student mobility?

Yes. Most people applaud when a child moves from a low-performing school to a higher-performing school, or when a child’s parent finds a school that’s a better fit, or when a parent or guardian gets a better-paying job and has to move to a better neighborhood. The transition can still be bumpy. But the biggest problem in Milwaukee and other low-income areas is that rampant school-switching is often happening among the children who are already disadvantaged, and they’re often cycling between the lowest-performing schools. The result: None of those schools or students get ahead.

How do you calculate turnover?

In a lot of different ways — that’s why it’s hard to compare different cities and states. One popular method is to calculate the percentage of children in a school or class who enroll late or withdraw early. Or you can look at how many students return to the school from one fall to the next, minus the children who should have graduated. Capturing all mid-year moves and summer moves requires following individual students year after year — that’s what the Journal Sentinel and UW-Oshkosh tried to do in their analyses.

What can we do to reduce turnover?

Reducing rampant school switching requires a coordinated effort on behalf of school districts, teachers, the community and other government agencies to address the myriad needs of disadvantaged families. But in the meantime, people could Invest in nonprofits that help families get into stable homes and that work one-on-one with families to make good decisions about schools. Other potential solutions include creating a centralized management system or enrollment system for disparate schools that would make sure student records transfer quickly. People may also consider urging the school district to reduce the number of times it transfers students involuntarily because of discipline-related incidents.

Related: Free program helps parents pick and stay at good schools



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