Does classroom mobility hurt stable students? An examination of achievement in urban schools

Common across past studies of the influence of student mobility on achievement is the presumption that mobility influences the students who actually move. We focus on a related issue, the impact of their classmates' mobility on the performance of those stable students who remain all year: Students in inner-city elementary schools are examined to determine whether those stable students in classrooms with greater mobility have smaller gains in achievement. Despite a variety of measures and several specifications, no consistent correlation emerges between classroom mobility and five measures of individual student achievement. We find virtually no evidence that mobility of classmates lowers achievement of stable students.