Elementary School Children: Many Change Schools Frequently, Harming Their
Education (Letter Report, 02/04/94, GAO/HEHS-94-45).
One-sixth of the nation's third graders--more than half a million
children--have attended at least three different schools since starting
first grade. Unless policymakers focus more on the needs of children
who are changing schools frequently--often poor, inner city, and with
limited English skills--these children may continue to do poorly in math
and reading and risk having to repeat grades. Local school districts
typically provide little additional assistance to these children. The
Education Department could help by developing strategies to provide all
eligible children, including those who have switched schools frequently,
access to federally funded Migrant Education and Chapter 1 services.
Timely and comparable record systems are one way to help mobile children
receive services. For example, a child's school records often take up
to 6 weeks to arrive in a new school, and student records often differ
from states and districts.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: HEHS-94-45
TITLE: Elementary School Children: Many Change Schools Frequently,
Harming Their Education
DATE: 02/04/94
SUBJECT: Educational programs
Disadvantaged persons
Children
Elementary school students
Aid for education
Elementary education
Records management
Electronic forms
Attrition rates
Comparative analysis
IDENTIFIER: Migrant Education Program
Dept. of Education Chapter 1 Program for Educationally
Disadvantaged Children
Migrant Student Record Transfer System
Dept. of Education Prospect Study
Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for Students
and Schools (ExPRESS) System
Maryland
California
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to the Honorable
Marcy Kaptur, House of Representatives
February 1994
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN - MANY
CHANGE SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY, HARMING
THEIR EDUCATION
GAO/HEHS-94-45
Elementary School Children
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
CCSSO - Council of Chief State School Officers
ExPRESS - Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for Students
and Schools
ESOL - English for Speakers of Other Languages
LEP - limited English proficient
MEP - Migrant Education Program
MSRTS - Migrant Student Record Transfer System
NCES - National Center for Education Statistics
RTI - Research Triangle Institute
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-251230
February 4, 1994
The Honorable Marcy Kaptur
House of Representatives
Dear Ms. Kaptur:
The United States has one of the highest mobility rates of all
developed countries; annually, about one-fifth of all Americans move.
Elementary school children who move frequently face disruption to
their lives, including their schooling. And, sadly, these children
are often not helped to adjust to the disruption of a new school--new
children, teachers, and principal--and to make sense of the
variations in curriculum between the old school and the new. The
success of children who change schools frequently may therefore be
jeopardized. In addition, as the schools pay greater attention to
high academic standards, advocated by national and state leaders,\1
these children may face increased difficulty in achieving success.
In response to these concerns, you asked us to obtain information on
children who change schools frequently: (1) their number and
characteristics, (2) their success in school relative to children who
have never changed schools, (3) the help that federal educational
programs, such as Migrant Education and Chapter 1, provide, and (4)
the help that improved student record systems could provide.
--------------------
\1 Early in 1990, President George Bush and the nation's governors
agreed to a set of six National Education Goals for the year 2000
concerning (1) readiness for school, (2) graduation from school, (3)
academic achievement and citizenship, (4) math and science
achievement, (5) adult literacy, and (6) drug- and violence-free
schools. The third and fourth goals, in particular, call for high
academic standards in certain school subjects.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
One in six of the nation's children who are third-graders\2 --over a
half million--have changed schools frequently,\3
attending at least three different schools since the beginning of
first grade. Unless policymakers focus greater attention on the
needs of children who have changed schools frequently--often
low-income, inner city, migrant, and limited English proficient
(LEP)--these children may continue to be low achieving in math and
reading, as well as to repeat a grade. Local school districts
generally provide little additional help to assist mobile children.
The Department of Education can play a role in helping mobile
children to receive appropriate educational services in a timely
manner. Specifically, the Department can develop strategies so that
all eligible children, including those who have changed schools
frequently, will have access to federally funded Migrant Education
and Chapter 1 services. Children who have changed schools frequently
are not as likely to receive services provided by the federal Migrant
Education and Chapter 1 programs as children who have never changed
schools.
Timely and comparable record systems could be one way to help mobile
children receive services. A child's records often take 2 to 6 weeks
to arrive in a new school, according to data collected by the
California State Department of Education and others. Moreover,
student records often are not comparable across states and districts.
The federal Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS),
established to transfer information from a migrant child's former
school district to a new school district, also does not provide
timely and complete information. However, other systems, such as one
currently being piloted in a few states, may in the future provide
comparable and more timely transfer of student records for all
children, including migrants.
--------------------
\2 Our analyses of the Department of Education's Prospects Study data
focus on third-graders in school year 1990-91 (see Scope and
Methodology, p. 4). We use the term children to refer to these
third-graders.
\3 When referring to our analyses of the data from the Prospects
Study, we use the term "children who have changed schools frequently"
to refer only to third-graders who have attended three or more
schools since the beginning of first grade. When not referring to
Prospects Study data, we use the term more generally to refer to
mobile children.
BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
High numbers of mobile children, school officials have reported, can
interfere with teachers' ability to organize and deliver instruction.
While the mobility of children is often a reflection of underlying
family issues, such as shortages of affordable housing, changes in
marital status, or unemployment, it is the schools that must face the
difficult challenge of meeting the educational needs of children who
change schools frequently. Teachers may find it difficult to assess
the needs of such new children, determine their past educational
experiences, and provide instruction that builds on these
experiences. These tasks may be especially difficult when many new
children enter the classroom throughout the year, often with no
advance notice. Children may be exposed to curriculums that vary
greatly across schools and districts; therefore, if they move from
one school to another in the middle of the school year, they may have
difficulty catching up in all subjects by the end of the school year.
Some children who have changed schools frequently may be eligible for
federal education programs for reasons other than their mobility. If
these children are low achievers, for example, they may be eligible
for Chapter 1 services in subjects such as reading and math. In
fiscal year 1993, the federal government appropriated over $6.1
billion for school districts to provide supplementary education
services to low-achieving children in those schools and grades served
by the Chapter 1 program.\4
Another federal program, the Migrant Education Program, provides
services for one group of children who are likely to change schools
frequently--children of migrant agricultural workers and fishers.
About 440,000 migrant children were provided with educational,
medical, or social services through this program, which was funded at
about $300 million for fiscal year 1993. The program serves children
who are "currently migrant"--those who have moved from one school
district to another within the last 12 months--as well as "formerly
migrant" children; the latter are eligible to receive services for an
additional 5 years after they are no longer categorized as "currently
migrant." Under the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School
Improvement Amendments of 1988, states, in delivering services, are
required to give currently migrant children priority over formerly
migrant children.\5 A recent House bill proposes to limit migrant
education services to migrant children who have changed school
districts within the last 2 years.
Recently, the attention of national and state leaders has been
focused on meeting the six National Education Goals, including
developing and adopting high standards in school subjects for all
children. As policymakers have focused on how all children will meet
high standards, policymakers have also been examining ways to
determine the progress of all children and ensure that they receive
the services they need. As one way to determine children's progress,
the National Education Goals Panel has recommended a voluntary
student record system, which would help to monitor the progress of
all children, even if they move among schools. Thus, issues related
to the mobility of all children have reached national prominence on
the educational policy agenda.
--------------------
\4 We did not focus on smaller programs that may also serve children
who change schools frequently, such as Part A of the Bilingual
Education Act program--Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965, the Emergency Immigrant Education Act program,
and the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act program.
\5 Unless otherwise noted, the term migrant children applies to both
currently and formerly migrant children.
SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
Children's mobility can be measured in different ways, including
changes in residence or changes in schools. In our analysis, we
focus on the latter. We analyzed data, collected during school year
1990-91 by the Department of Education's Prospects Study,\6 to
determine the extent to which children change schools frequently; the
characteristics of these children, including their achievement rates;
and the help these children receive from federal education programs
(see app. I). The study provided nationally representative
information on third-graders; about 15,000 third-graders, in 235
elementary schools, and their parents, teachers, and school
principals completed questionnaires.
The Prospects Study contained a measure of a child's mobility--the
number of schools that a third-grader has attended since the
beginning of first grade. This measure allowed us to separate
children into three groups. The first group, those who have attended
the same school since first grade, we refer to as those who have
never changed schools. We also provide information on a second
group, those who have attended two schools since first grade. The
third group, those who have attended three or more schools since
first grade, we refer to as children who have changed schools
frequently.
We interviewed officials from the Department of Education's Migrant
Education and Chapter 1 programs to examine (1) the extent to which
children who have changed schools frequently receive federally funded
education program services and (2) the effect changing schools may
have on children who are served by these programs.\7 We also met with
staff from the National Education Goals Panel and the Council of
Chief State School Officers to discuss the development and
implementation of the Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically
for Students and Schools (ExPRESS) system; through this exchange,
elementary and secondary schools, in different localities and states,
would be able to voluntarily transfer student records electronically.
We interviewed staff, from one state and one district, who are
conducting pilots using the ExPRESS system.
To provide examples of how children's mobility may affect their
instruction and achievement, we (1) conducted a case study of a
school in Maryland with a high rate of mobility and (2) compared our
results with a similar case study conducted in California (see app.
II). We also reviewed the literature on issues related to frequent
school changes and their effects on children.
We conducted our review from January 1992 through September 1993 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
--------------------
\6 The Department of Education provided us with crosstabulation data
from its Prospects Study, a congressionally mandated study to
determine the short- and long-term consequences of children's
participation in the Chapter 1 program.
\7 We use the term Migrant Education Program to refer to services
authorized in Part D, Subpart 1, Chapter 1 of Title 1 of the
Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement
Amendments of 1988. We use the term Chapter 1 to refer to services
authorized in Part A, Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational
Agencies, of Chapter 1.
LOW-INCOME, INNER CITY,
MIGRANT, AND LEP CHILDREN ARE
MORE LIKELY TO HAVE CHANGED
SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4
Children who are from low-income families or attend inner city
schools are more likely than others to have changed schools
frequently. Overall, about 17 percent of all third-graders--more
than a half million--have changed schools frequently, attending three
or more schools since first grade. Of third-graders from low-income
families--that is, with incomes below $10,000--30 percent have
changed schools frequently, compared with about 10 percent from
families with incomes of $25,000 and above (see app. I). About 25
percent of third-graders in inner city schools have changed schools
frequently, compared with about 15 percent of third-graders in rural
or suburban schools.
An inner city child, compared with one in a suburban or rural school,
may be more likely to change schools frequently, in part, because he
or she is more likely to come from a low-income family. Another
factor that could contribute to an inner city child changing schools
is that such a child may move only a short distance, yet move into a
new school attendance area; however, a child in a larger, less
densely populated school attendance area--for example, in a suburban
or rural school district--may move several miles and still attend the
same school.
Migrant and LEP children also are much more likely than others to
have changed schools frequently: about 40 percent of migrant
children have changed schools frequently, compared with about 17
percent of all children. Among LEP children, about 34 percent have
changed schools frequently.
CHILDREN WHO HAVE CHANGED
SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY ARE MORE
LIKELY TO BE LOW ACHIEVERS AND
TO REPEAT A GRADE
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :5
Of the nation's third-graders who have changed schools frequently, 41
percent are low achievers, that is, below grade level, in reading,
compared with 26 percent of third-graders who have never changed
schools (see fig. 1). Results are similar for math--33 percent of
children who have changed schools frequently are below grade level,
compared with 17 percent of those who have never changed schools. In
grouping the children who have changed schools frequently into four
income categories, we found that within each category, these children
are more likely to be below grade level in reading and math than
those who have never changed schools\8 (see app. I). Children who
have moved often were also more likely to have behavioral problems,
according to a recent study.\9
Figure 1: Children Who Have
Changed Schools Frequently Are
More Likely to Be Low Achievers
in Reading and Math
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
Overall, third-graders who have changed schools frequently are
two-and-a-half times as likely to repeat a grade as third-graders who
have never changed schools (20 versus 8 percent) (see fig. 2). For
all income groups, children who have changed schools frequently are
more likely to repeat a grade than children who have never changed
schools (see app. I).
Figure 2: Children Who Have
Changed Schools Frequently Are
More Likely to Repeat a Grade
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
Children who have changed schools frequently, compared with children
who have never changed schools, are more than twice as likely to have
nutrition and health or hygiene problems, according to teachers.\10
When children changed schools four or more times, both a Department
of Education and a Denver Public Schools study found, they were more
likely to drop out of school. Children who changed schools four or
more times by eighth grade were at least four times more likely to
drop out than those who remained in the same school; this is true
even after taking into account the socio-economic status of a child's
family, according to the Department study.\11 Children who
transferred within the district five or more times dropped out of
school at similarly high rates, regardless of reading achievement
scores, the Denver study found.\12
Except for migrant children, little is currently done to help
children whose frequent school changes affect the continuity of their
schooling. It may be difficult for teachers to focus on the needs of
these children, particularly those who enter after school has
started, rather than on maintaining continuity for the rest of the
class. When children enter classrooms after the beginning of the
year, teachers may prejudge them unfavorably.\13 Teachers in schools
with high proportions of children who change schools after the
beginning of the year indicated that these school changes disrupt
classroom instruction, and teachers must spend additional time on
noninstructional tasks (see app. II). Teachers may therefore not
have the time to identify gaps in such a child's knowledge; moreover,
these gaps may grow as the child is left on his or her own to make
sense of the new curriculum and its relation to the one at the
previous school.\14 Children who changed schools often, except for
migrant children, did not receive specialized educational services,
researchers have noted.\15
--------------------
\8 Unless noted, we did not control for other factors in our
analysis.
\9 Children who moved frequently, that is, in the top 10 percent of
families surveyed, were 77 percent more likely to have four or more
behavioral problems than those with no or infrequent moves. For more
information, see David Wood and others, "Impact of Family Relocation
on Children's Growth, Development, School Function, and Behavior,"
Journal of the American Medical Association (Sept. 15, 1993), pp.
1334-38.
\10 For a discussion of comprehensive school-based programs that may
help at-risk children with education and health or behavioral
problems, see School-Linked Human Services: A Comprehensive Strategy
for Aiding Students at Risk of School Failure (GAO/HRD-94-21, Dec.
30, 1993).
\11 See MPR Associates, "Characteristics of At-Risk Students in
NELS:88," Conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics,
Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Department of
Education, NCES 92-042 (Aug. 1992), p. 15.
\12 Ridge A. Hammons and Miles C. Olson, "Interschool Transfer and
Dropout: Some Findings and Suggestions," National Association of
Secondary School Principals Bulletin (Sept. 1988), p. 136.
\13 Joan Newman, "What Should We Do About the Highly Mobile
Student?," Research Brief (Mount Vernon, Wash.: Educational School
District 189, 1988). See also, Carl Sewell, "The Impact of Pupil
Mobility on the Assessment of Achievement and Its Implications for
Program Planning" (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Community School District 17,
1982).
\14 Andrea A. Lash and Sandra L. Kirkpatrick, "A Classroom
Perspective on Student Mobility," The Elementary School Journal (Nov.
1990), pp. 177-91.
\15 According to our analyses of data from the Research Triangle
Institute study and the 1993 Digest of Education Statistics, the
number of elementary school children who change schools frequently is
about 10 times the total number of migrant children in elementary
school. Therefore, the majority of children who change schools
frequently are unlikely to receive help.
MIGRANT CHILDREN WHO HAVE
CHANGED SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY ARE
LESS LIKELY THAN THOSE NOT
CHANGING SCHOOLS TO RECEIVE
MIGRANT EDUCATION PROGRAM
SERVICES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :6
Of migrant third-graders who have attended three or more schools
since first grade, 21 percent receive migrant services, compared with
54 percent of migrants who have not changed schools at all (see fig.
3).\16 These results are surprising since the Migrant Education Act
is intended to address, to a large degree, the problems mobility
creates for migrant children. Migrant children who have changed
schools frequently are less likely to attend schools with migrant
education programs than those who have never changed schools (see
fig. 3).
Figure 3: Migrant Children Who
Have Changed Schools Frequently
Are Less Likely to Receive
Migrant Education Services or
Attend Schools Offering
Services
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
--------------------
\16 While the Prospects Study data is based on a nationally
representative sample of third-graders, the number of migrants in
this sample is small and the sample is not representative of the
nation's migrants. These factors could affect the magnitude of the
difference between migrant children who change schools frequently and
those who have not changed schools. According to our analyses, this
difference passed standard tests of statistical significance.
MIGRANT PROGRAM PROVISIONS
ALLOW MANY CHILDREN WHO HAVE
NOT CHANGED SCHOOL DISTRICTS
RECENTLY TO RECEIVE SERVICES
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :6.1
Provisions of the Migrant Education Act allow services to migrant
children who have not changed school districts for as many as 6
years.\17 However, migrant children who have changed school districts
more recently have greater educational needs than those who have not
changed school districts for 3 or more years, according to our
analysis of data presented in a study conducted for the Department of
Education by Research Triangle Institute (RTI).\18 For example, for
reading and language arts, about 50 percent of those who have changed
school districts within the last 2 years fell below the 35th
percentile. In comparison, teachers estimated, about 35 percent or
less of those who have not changed school districts within the last 3
years fell below the 35th percentile, about what one would expect
from an average group of students.\19 Results are generally similar
for math.
While states are required to give priority to currently migrant
children, these children are less likely to receive either
instructional or support services from the Migrant Education Program
than children who are formerly migrant (80 versus 85 percent). When
we look at instructional services alone, currently migrant children
are more likely than formerly migrant children to be served (60
versus 50 percent). However, of all the children who receive
instructional services from the Migrant Education Program, the
majority (61 percent) are formerly migrant; about half of the
formerly migrant children receiving instructional services have not
moved within the last 3 years, according to the RTI study (see app.
III).
--------------------
\17 Children who have changed school districts within the year, that
is, currently migrant, are eligible for migrant education services.
Moreover, they may receive services as formerly migrant children for
an additional 5 years, up to a total of 6 years.
\18 Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter 1
Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(Research Triangle Park, N.C.: Research Triangle Institute, 1992).
Prepared under contract to the U.S. Department of Education.
\19 It is clear that (1) children who have changed school districts
within the last 2 years are substantially more likely than average to
be low achieving and (2) those who have not changed school districts
for 3 or more years appear no more likely than average to be low
achieving. However, the case is less clear for children who have
changed school districts between 2 and 3 years--they are only
somewhat more likely than average to be low achieving.
CHAPTER 1 PARTICIPATION RATES
LOWER FOR LOW-ACHIEVING
CHILDREN WHO HAVE CHANGED
SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY THAN FOR
LOW-ACHIEVING CHILDREN WHO HAVE
NEVER CHANGED SCHOOLS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :7
Low-achieving children who have changed schools frequently are less
likely to receive Chapter 1 services than low-achieving children who
have never changed schools. Of third-graders who have never changed
schools and read below grade level, 25 percent receive Chapter 1
reading services. In contrast, 20 percent of third-graders who have
changed schools frequently and read below grade level receive these
services.\20 In grades kindergarten through 6, approximately 90,000
additional low-achieving children who have changed schools frequently
could receive Chapter 1 reading services if the program provided
these services at the same rates to these children as to
low-achieving children who have never changed schools.
--------------------
\20 When we excluded those children in schools or grades where
Chapter 1 reading services were not available, we found similar
differences between the two groups of children: 43 percent of low
achievers who have never changed schools receive Chapter 1 reading
services compared with 37 percent for those low achievers who have
changed schools frequently.
LACK OF CHAPTER 1 DATA TO
EXPLAIN THE LOWER
CHAPTER 1 PARTICIPATION
RATES OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE
CHANGED SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.1
The Department of Education has little information on children who
change schools frequently and their participation in the Chapter 1
program, as well as the effects that children moving frequently from
school to school have had on Chapter 1 services. Therefore, we were
unable to explain why low-achieving children who have changed schools
frequently may be less likely to be served by Chapter 1 than
low-achieving children who have never changed schools. A 1992
Department of Education policy instructs districts to reserve
adequate funds so that migrant children who are eligible for Chapter
1 services--even if they arrive late in the school year--will receive
them. But nonmigrant children who change schools frequently and are
also eligible for Chapter 1 services are omitted in this policy.
TIMELY AND COMPARABLE STUDENT
RECORD SYSTEMS ARE ONE WAY TO
HELP CHILDREN WHO HAVE CHANGED
SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY, INCLUDING
MIGRANTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :8
Without student records containing recent assessment data, classroom
placements may not reflect children's needs for services. In some
districts with high rates of student mobility, no assessments of late
entrants may be conducted because of a lack of staff time, even when
no student records are available. For example, one educator,
surveyed in a California study, noted that "if a student comes in our
busiest time . . . without a transcript, we put her in her
age-appropriate class. Sometimes it takes weeks before the teacher
realizes a mistake has been made. We simply don't have time to do
extensive testing anymore."\21
According to some researchers, as well as state and district
officials, timely and comparable record systems are one way to help
children who move frequently, including those served by federal
education programs, to better adjust to a new school.\22 Across
districts and states, current student record systems vary as to (1)
data elements included and (2) how the records are transferred, by
mail or electronically. The most commonly used mode of transferring
student records--by mail--can be cumbersome and time-consuming. In
one state, local officials reported, it often takes 2 to 6 weeks
before a new child's records arrive. In a school with a high
mobility rate, teachers rarely used student records to place
children, teachers we interviewed noted, because these records
usually arrived days or weeks after the children transferred or not
at all.
The MSRTS, the federal system that tracks migrant children, is slow,
incomplete, and used infrequently, according to recent studies.\23
With the MSRTS, records take about 1 week, on average, from the time
of a request to the arrival of a hard copy; however, it is not
uncommon for records to take up to a month to arrive. Because few
school districts are on-line, records must be printed out at the
MSRTS center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and mailed to the school
districts; sometimes, records must first go through a regional
Migrant Education office. Over half of all student records lack test
data and, frequently, instructional and health data. School staff
working in the Migrant Education Program are much more likely to use
records sent from the old school than records from the MSRTS, staff
report, primarily because of the small proportion of migrant children
in most school districts.
The operation of the MSRTS is expected to be considered this year in
conjunction with the reauthorization of the Migrant Education Program
of the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement
Amendments of 1988. Public Law 103-59, enacted in August 1993,
extended the contract for the operation of the MSRTS until such time
as the Secretary of Education determines is necessary, but not later
than June 30, 1995. The cost to operate the MSRTS center in Little
Rock, Arkansas, averages about $6 million annually; this does not
include the cost of data entry and system maintenance at the state
and local levels, which has been estimated to be over $9 million
annually.
--------------------
\21 California Student Information System, "A Study of the
Feasibility of Implementing a Statewide Process for Electronically
Sharing Student Information: Executive Summary," Collaborative
Effort by the California Department of Education, the Far West
Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, and the
California Education Data Processing Association (Oct. 1992), p. 5.
\22 See, for example, Andrea Lash and Sandra Kirkpatrick, "A
Classroom Perspective on Student Mobility," The Elementary School
Journal (Nov. 1990), pp. 177-91; "Highly Mobile Students:
Educational Problems and Possible Solutions," ERIC Clearinghouse on
Urban Education, New York, N.Y. (June 1991); The Project Description
of the California Student Information System, California Department
of Education (Apr. 13, 1992); and Joan Newman, "What Should We Do
About the Highly Mobile Student?" (1988).
\23 See Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter
1 Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(1992). See also, National Commission on Migrant Education, Keeping
Up with Our Nation's Migrant Students: A Report on the Migrant
Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS) (Bethesda, Md.: National
Commission on Migrant Education, 1991).
NEW RECORD TRANSFER SYSTEM
SHOWS PROMISE
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :8.1
California is one of a few states that have recently begun to pilot
an electronic student record format, ExPRESS; it is expected to be
used to transfer the records of all children, not just migrants. The
format is based on common data standards for transferring student
records and was developed by a group of state and local educators
with experience in information management; these efforts were funded
by the Department of Education's National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES). With ExPRESS, California officials estimate, the
use of these common data standards would reduce the time needed to
evaluate the content of a student record--for example, to determine
whether a student has taken the equivalent of a certain type of
course.\24 The use of ExPRESS to electronically transfer student
records may also generate savings by cutting costs of record
transfer, retesting, and reimmunization, as well as reporting student
data to state and federal agencies. A full evaluation to assess
costs and benefits of ExPRESS has not yet been conducted, however,
because ExPRESS has only been piloted in a few states and has not
been fully implemented in any state. (See app. IV for further
details.)
The National Education Goals Panel believes that as states and
districts adopt comparable student record systems, (1) educators will
be equipped with better data to help children and (2) policymakers
will be better able to monitor progress towards the National
Education Goals because the progress of all children can be recorded,
even that of those who change schools, school districts, or states
(see app. IV). To help in monitoring progress towards the goals,
the panel has recommended developing a voluntary, uniform state and
district record system for children. The panel recommended that the
data elements contained in these records be consistent with those
developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and NCES.
Better student record systems may improve states' and districts'
ability to determine whether children who change schools frequently
are provided with the help they need, according to the developers of
the ExPRESS system.
--------------------
\24 California Student Information System, "A Study of the Economic
Feasibility of Implementing Electronic Student Record Transfer in
California: A Benefit-Cost Analysis," Collaborative Effort by the
California Department of Education, the Far West Laboratory for
Educational Research and Development, and the California Education
Data Processing Association, Review Draft (Feb. 6, 1993).
CONCLUSIONS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :9
Children who change schools frequently face many challenges to their
success in school. Such change can cause disruption and add to the
other challenges--low-income, limited English proficiency, and
migrant status--that make learning and achievement difficult for
them. Nevertheless, many of the children who change schools
frequently may be less likely to receive Migrant Education and
Chapter 1 programs services than other children meeting program
eligibility standards.
As the nation moves to setting high standards for all children, those
who are failing by current standards may be even more likely to fail.
How can low-achieving and migrant children who change schools
frequently be helped to meet these high standards? One potential
help is improved access to Chapter 1 services, for which such
children are often eligible but not necessarily served. Another
possibility is to better focus Migrant Education Program funding on
the migrant children most in need of services, for example, migrant
children who have changed school districts in the last 2 school
years. If funding were more focused on these children, a greater
proportion of these children could be served by local migrant
education programs or such programs could offer those children most
in need more intensive services.
Finally, another potential area of assistance is improved or new
student record systems. These systems would not guarantee better
delivery of services to children who change schools frequently, but
they could help school personnel to make more timely and informed
judgements about the services these students need, including those
that federal programs might provide. In addition, improved state and
local record systems, which are intended to cover all children, could
make the existing separate federal record system for migrant children
(MSRTS) unnecessary in the long run.
MATTERS FOR CONGRESSIONAL
CONSIDERATION
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :10
Given the great educational needs of migrant children who have
changed school districts recently, Congress may wish to consider
focusing migrant education funding to give higher priority to such
children. This could be accomplished, for example, by limiting
eligibility for federal Migrant Education Program services only to
migrant children who have changed school districts within the last 2
years, rather than continuing program eligibility to formerly migrant
children who have not changed school districts for as many as 6
years.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :11
We recommend that the Department of Education (1) determine the
reason(s) for the low Chapter 1 participation rates of low-achieving
children who have changed schools frequently and (2) develop
strategies so that all eligible children who have changed schools
frequently, including migrant children, will have access to Chapter 1
services.
We also recommend that the Department of Education determine the
feasibility of using electronic student record systems, such as those
currently being adopted by some states and school districts for all
students, instead of the MSRTS.
AGENCY COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :12
The Department of Education provided written comments on a draft of
this report (see app. V). The Department generally agreed with our
recommendation about determining the reason(s) for the low Chapter 1
participation rates of low-achieving children who have changed
schools frequently to ensure that these children receive needed
services. It suggested that better record transfer systems may be
one way to ensure that school districts provide services to children
who enter schools at any time during the school year.
Moreover, the Department generally agreed with our recommendation
about developing strategies so that all eligible children, including
those who have changed schools frequently, will be selected for
services on the same basis. It suggested that its proposals to
expand schoolwide Chapter 1 programs and encourage systemic planning
at the district level were steps in this direction. We agree that
these proposals may help children who change schools frequently.
However, because many Chapter 1 schools will not have schoolwide
programs, even under the administration's recent proposal, we
continue to believe that the Department should develop additional
strategies to ensure that low-achieving children who change schools
frequently have the same access to Chapter 1 services as other
children.
The Department also agreed with our recommendation that it determine
the feasibility of replacing the MSRTS with electronic student record
systems, such as those currently being adopted by some states and
school districts. It also stated that it is currently investigating
other options for student record transfer. In our report, we note
that little evaluation data exist on the ExPRESS system. In
examining the feasibility of ExPRESS, we agree with the Department
that other record transfer options, as well as their feasibility,
should also be examined.
Although the Department commented that we had identified an important
issue--that children who change schools frequently do not receive
federally funded services to the same extent as children who do not
change schools--it raised a concern about the use of the Prospects
Study data to generalize about migrant students. We had recognized
that while the Prospects data are based on a nationally
representative sample of third-graders, the number of migrants in
this sample is generally small and not representative of the nation's
migrants. For this reason, we had supplemented our analyses of the
Prospects Study data with secondary analysis of data from the RTI
study--based on a nationally representative sample of migrants.\25 We
also responded to additional technical comments provided by the
Department, as appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Education,
appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties.
If you wish to discuss the contents of this report, please call me on
(202) 512-7014. Major contributors to this report are listed in
appendix VI.
Sincerely,
Linda G. Morra
Director, Education and Employment Issues
--------------------
\25 Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter 1
Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(1992).
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
FREQUENTLY: NUMBER,
CHARACTERISTICS, ACHIEVEMENT
RATES, AND TYPES OF EDUCATIONAL
SUPPORT RECEIVED
=========================================================== Appendix I
We analyzed data from the Prospects Study, the Department of
Education's longitudinal study of Chapter 1, because it provided data
on mobility and other factors. The Prospects Study contained two
primary measures of children's mobility: (1) the number of schools
attended since starting first grade and (2) the number of times the
child changed schools during school year 1990-91. In our analysis of
the Prospects database, we focused on the first measure in order to
include school changes that may have occurred in previous years. We
found that few children changed schools more than once during a
school year (see p. 32).
USE OF THE PROSPECTS STUDY
DATABASE TO ANALYZE CHILDREN'S
MOBILITY
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1
The Prospects Study includes a national stratified sample of
elementary school children in the first, third, and seventh grades.
We chose to analyze data on third-graders rather than seventh-graders
because the focus of our request was children's mobility in the
elementary grades. In addition, using third-graders allowed us to
minimize the chances that children would change schools as part of a
group, rather than individually. For example, a child may have
attended three or more schools by seventh grade because the district
puts grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-9 in different schools; a child may,
therefore, be changing schools with classmates from the previous
grade. Such changes are likely to be less disruptive to the child
than those made as a result of a change in school attendance area.
Data on children in the first grade would not have allowed us to
examine children's mobility in elementary schools in as comprehensive
a manner as the data for third-graders.
The Prospects Study, with 15 questionnaires, provides a rich array of
data, based on the responses of children, parents, teachers, and
school officials. The data were collected using a sample that was
stratified by census region and three levels of urbanization.
In response to our requests for analyses, the Planning and Evaluation
Service, within the Department's Office of the Under Secretary,
provided us with crosstabulation tables from the Department's
contractor, Abt Associates, based on our specifications. Because the
data tape for the study was not available outside of the Department
at the time we conducted our analysis, we were unable to conduct
multivariate analyses, such as regression. In addition, estimates of
sampling errors were not available to us. Overall, we have presented
group differences that are relatively large and, according to our
analyses, pass standard tests of statistical significance. For our
examination of one group whose size was relatively small, that of
migrant children, we supplemented our analyses of the Prospects Study
database with analyses based on the Research Triangle Institute (RTI)
study of a representative sample of migrant children.\1
--------------------
\1 Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter 1
Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(1992).
NUMBER AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
FREQUENTLY
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2
We found that about 17 percent of third-graders have changed schools
frequently, that is, have attended three or more schools since the
beginning of first grade. About one-quarter, or 24 percent, of
third-graders have attended two schools; the remaining 59 percent of
third-graders have remained in the same school since first grade (see
fig. I.1).
Figure I.1: About 17 Percent
of All Third-Graders Have
Attended Three or More Schools
Since First Grade
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
INNER CITY AND LOW-INCOME
CHILDREN MUCH MORE LIKELY TO
CHANGE SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.1
Inner city children are much more likely to change schools
frequently, on average, than those in rural or suburban areas or in
small cities or towns. One-fourth of third-graders in inner city
schools have changed schools frequently, that is, have attended three
or more schools since first grade. In comparison, only about
one-seventh of children from rural or suburban areas or from small
cities or towns have changed schools frequently. (See fig. I.2.)
Figure I.2: One-Fourth of
Third-Graders Attending Inner
City Schools Change Schools
Frequently (Have Attended Three
or More Schools Since First
Grade)
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
Children from low-income families are more likely to change schools
frequently than those from higher income families. Among children in
families with annual incomes below $10,000, 30 percent have changed
schools frequently, compared with 8 percent of children in families
with incomes of $50,000 or more. Overall, the percentage of children
who change schools frequently decreases as income increases. (See
fig. I.3.)
Figure I.3: As Family Income
Increases, Third-Graders'
Likelihood of Changing Schools
Frequently Decreases
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
NATIVE AMERICAN, BLACK,
HISPANIC, MIGRANT, AND LEP
CHILDREN MORE LIKELY TO
CHANGE SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.2
Native American, black, and Hispanic children are more likely to
change schools frequently than Asian or white children (see fig.
I.4). However, these differences are less related to race or
ethnicity than to differences in income and, consequently,
homeownership versus renter status: renters tend to move much more
frequently than homeowners. When we examined 1990 Current Population
Survey data reported by the Bureau of the Census, race or ethnic
differences in mobility largely disappeared after considering
homeownership versus renter status.\2
Figure I.4: Third-Graders Who
Are Native American, Black, or
Hispanic Are More Likely to
Change Schools Frequently Than
Those Who Are Asian or White
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
Migrant and limited English proficient (LEP) children are much more
likely to change schools frequently than all children (see fig.
I.5). About 40 percent of migrant children and 34 percent of LEP
children change schools frequently, in comparison with 17 percent of
all children. In addition, compared with 59 percent of all children,
a smaller percentage of migrant and LEP children have never changed
schools--28 and 38 percent, respectively.
Figure I.5: Migrant and
Limited English Proficient
(LEP) Third-Graders Are More
Likely to Change Schools
Frequently Than All
Third-Graders
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
Teachers reported that children who change schools frequently,
compared with those who have never changed schools, are much more
likely to have problems related to nutrition or health and hygiene.
Among children who change schools frequently, 10 percent are reported
to have nutrition problems, compared with about 3 percent of children
who have never changed schools. Similarly, teachers report that 20
percent of children who change schools frequently have health and
hygiene problems, compared with 8 percent of children who have never
changed schools. (See fig. I.6.)
Figure I.6: Third-Graders Who
Change Schools Frequently Are
More Likely to Have Nutrition
or Health and Hygiene Problems
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
--------------------
\2 In one school district, Rochester, New York, landlords and school
officials have begun to work together to decrease the rate of
mobility for elementary school children whose parents are renters by
(1) providing parents with information about how mobility is related
to lower achievement and (2) advertising apartment vacancies by
elementary school attendance zone. See also David Schuler, "Effects
of Mobility on Student Achievement," ERS Spectrum (Fall 1990), pp.
17-24.
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
FREQUENTLY ARE MORE LIKELY
TO BE LOW ACHIEVERS AND
REPEAT A GRADE THAN CHILDREN
WHO DO NOT
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.3
Within each income group, children who change schools frequently are
more likely to be low achievers--below grade level--in reading than
are children who have never changed schools; however, the extent of
this difference varies (see fig. I.7). Overall, children from
low-income families are more likely to be low achievers than those
from higher income families, regardless of the frequency of school
changes. The results were generally similar when we analyzed, by
income group and number of schools attended, the percentage of
children below grade level in math.
Figure I.7: Third-Graders Who
Change Schools Frequently Are
More Likely Than Those Who Have
Never Changed Schools to Be
Below Grade Level in Reading,
Regardless of Income
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
For all children, those who have changed schools frequently are more
than twice as likely to repeat a grade as those who have never
changed schools. Among children who change schools frequently, about
20 percent repeat a grade; in contrast, among children who have never
changed schools, about 8 percent repeat a grade. In all income
groups, children who change schools frequently are more likely to
repeat a grade than children who have never changed schools; however,
the results are most striking for those in families with annual
incomes above $10,000. (See fig. I.8.)
Figure I.8: Third-Graders Who
Change Schools Frequently Are
More Likely Than Those Who Have
Never Changed Schools to Have
Repeated a Grade, Regardless of
Income
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
In addition to examining the relationship between children's
achievement and the number of schools attended since first grade, we
also examined the relationship between children's achievement and the
number of times children moved during school year 1990-91. Those
children changing schools during the year are more likely to be low
achievers than those remaining in the same school; those children
changing schools two or more times are more likely to be low
achievers than those changing schools once during the year. Few
children, however, move two or more times during the year. While
about 11 percent of children change schools at least once during the
school year, only about 2 percent of children change two or more
times. In addition, children are about equally likely to change
schools within the district as they are to change schools across
districts. Those children who change schools within the district are
slightly more likely to be below grade level in reading than those
who change schools across districts; the results are similar for
math.\3
--------------------
\3 One might expect that those students who move across districts
will find a greater change in educational environment and, therefore,
will be more likely to be low achieving. Those who move within the
district, however, may be more likely to have characteristics that
increase their likelihood of low achievement, such as being from a
low-income family, as was suggested by our case study data. Thus,
the net differences in rates of low achievement between the two
groups may be small.
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
FREQUENTLY LESS LIKELY TO
RECEIVE SUPPORT FROM FEDERAL
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3
Children who change schools frequently are less likely to receive
educational support from federal programs than those who have never
changed schools. For example, migrant children who change schools
frequently are less likely to receive migrant education services than
those who have never changed schools. In addition, low-achieving
children who change schools frequently are less likely to get Chapter
1 services than those low-achieving children who have never changed
schools; this is true for children achieving below grade level in
math as well as reading. For example, among children who have never
changed schools and are below grade level in math, 22 percent receive
Chapter 1 math services, compared with 17 percent of those who change
schools frequently (see fig. I.9).
Figure I.9: Third-Graders
Below Grade Level in Reading
and Math Are Less Likely to
Receive Related Chapter 1
Services if They Change Schools
Frequently
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: GAO analysis of Prospects Study data.
CASE STUDY OF A MARYLAND SCHOOL
WITH A HIGH MOBILITY RATE:
COMPARISON WITH SIMILAR SCHOOL IN
CALIFORNIA
========================================================== Appendix II
In the state of Maryland, we conducted a case study of an elementary
school, selected by the district's superintendent, with one of the
highest mobility rates within the district for the 1991-92 school
year. We interviewed school and district personnel to determine the
effects of children's mobility on the school's ability to provide
educational services.
We compared our interview results from this case study with those
from a case study of a school in California with a high-mobility
rate. The California study was conducted by Andrea Lash and Sandra
Kirkpatrick,\1 researchers who have examined issues similar to those
we examined. We will refer to the school we analyzed as the
"Maryland school" and to the school in the study conducted by Lash
and Kirkpatrick as the "California school."
--------------------
\1 For more information, see Andrea Lash and Sandra Kirkpatrick, "A
Classroom Perspective on Student Mobility," The Elementary School
Journal (Nov. 1990), pp. 177-91.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MARYLAND
AND CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1
MARYLAND SCHOOL PROFILE
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:1.1
During the 1991-92 school year, about 31 percent of the Maryland
school's children entered after the start of the school year and
about 30 percent of the school's children withdrew before the end of
the year. A substantial number of the school's children lived in
seven apartment complexes, near the boundary lines of the Maryland
school district and the District of Columbia. The school serves a
student body that is 74 percent black, 10 percent white, 10 percent
Asian, and 6 percent Hispanic. Of these children, 56 percent are
eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. In 1988, the last year
that nationally normed standardized tests were administered in
Maryland, children in the school generally scored slightly below the
national average in reading and above the national average in math.
These scores, especially in math, showed improvement over those in
earlier years, the principal noted, due to the work of the school
staff who, generally, had many years of experience at the school.
The school offers a language instruction program for limited English
proficient (LEP) children; the district refers to this program as
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This ESOL program,
one of about 38 in the district, provides English language
instruction to LEP children from 29 different countries. Parents can
choose whether their children who are LEP will be enrolled in the
school for their attendance area or in the school housing the ESOL
program for their section of the district. The district's
International Student Guidance Office assists parents registering
children from other countries and provides parents with information
about the availability of social services in the county. This
information is available at all schools and is frequently placed in
public libraries.
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL PROFILE
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:1.2
The California school is located in a medium-sized city in a
neighborhood composed primarily of rental housing. In the district's
spring 1987 report, the student mobility rate for the California
school was assessed at 77 percent (this rate represents enrollments
and withdrawals expressed as a percentage of the average monthly
attendance). The school serves a student body that is approximately
43 percent black, 25 percent Hispanic, 18 percent white, and 13
percent Asian. Of these children, 62 percent are in families that
receive funds from Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC).
Standardized test scores place the school below the national norm, at
all grade levels, in both reading and mathematics.
INTERVIEWS WITH MARYLAND SCHOOL
AND DISTRICT PERSONNEL AND WITH
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2
We conducted interviews at the Maryland school with the principal,
one teacher who also served as chairperson of the school-site
management team, four classroom teachers, one Chapter 1 teacher, two
ESOL teachers, and one counselor. In addition, we interviewed
district-level coordinators in the Chapter 1 program and the ESOL
program, as well as an official in the Pupil Accounting and School
Boundaries Office. In the interviews at the California school, 21
teachers of regular and bilingual classes participated, according to
the Lash and Kirkpatrick study.
When comparing the Maryland school with the California school, we
found that in both schools, teachers reported similar problems with
children's mobility. During the interviews, teachers noted that (1)
children change schools throughout the year; (2) children who change
schools seldom give notice when enrolling late or withdrawing early
from school; (3) changing schools interferes with classroom
instruction and increases noninstructional tasks, especially if
little advance notice is given as to when children will enter late or
withdraw early; (4) schools generally must place children before
records arrive and, therefore, may not provide children with needed
services; and (5) transfer cards may be helpful if they are timely
and accurate.
CHILDREN CHANGE SCHOOLS
THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, THOUGH
MORE FREQUENTLY AT CERTAIN
TIMES
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:2.1
Staff in both schools reported that children change schools
throughout the year. For the Maryland school, mobility is higher
during the fall and in the spring months. Mobility stabilizes during
the winter months, a school official commented, because there are
fewer evictions due to local laws preventing them when the
temperature drops below zero. According to the California study,
enrollment declines between September and December, increases
dramatically at the start of the new year, and then declines.
Withdrawals were more likely to occur, this study noted, during the
first half of the month than during the latter half. In contrast
with enrollments, withdrawals were more evenly distributed throughout
the school year.
It is common for students to change schools, Maryland school staff
said, both within the district and across districts, including to
districts located in other states. The school receives a number of
children from outside the district and state because (1) it is
located in a metropolitan area and (2) other districts in Maryland,
as well as those in Virginia and Washington, D.C., are in close
proximity.
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
SELDOM GIVE NOTICE WHEN
ENROLLING LATE OR
WITHDRAWING EARLY FROM
SCHOOL
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:2.2
In both the Maryland and California schools, teachers receive little
or no notice for children who enroll in school late--after the start
of the school year--or who withdraw early--before the end of the
year. The Maryland school usually receives no advance notice for new
children who enroll late. For early withdrawals, the school
generally receives no notice or up to a week's notice. Only three
teachers in the California school reported that they have ever
received advance notice of a child's enrolling in their classes, and
the notice was never more than 1 day in advance. A first-grade
teacher at the California school said, "Usually the secretary just
appears with the child at the doorway, and that's the first time we
know that we have a new child."
CHILDREN'S MOBILITY
INTERFERES WITH CLASSROOM
INSTRUCTION AND INCREASES
NONINSTRUCTIONAL TASKS FOR
TEACHERS
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:2.3
Children's mobility disrupts classroom instruction, teachers
interviewed in both schools said; time spent on instruction decreases
because teachers must spend additional time on noninstructional
tasks. According to teachers in the Maryland school, because
teachers are not given advance notice when a new child arrives, the
class must be interrupted and instruction delayed. The teacher has
to take the time to acclimate the child to the classroom environment
and provide him or her with instructional materials and a desk. At
the California school, when new children enrolled, they would be
assigned to whichever class had the greatest number of empty seats.
Because of lack of information about children's arrivals, teachers
said, they did not prepare for new children. If teachers were given
even minimal advance notice, the California teachers stated, they
could better help a new child to feel more welcome and at ease
because the teacher could have a desk and materials ready; this would
ease the new child's transition into the classroom, as well as
minimize disruption for the rest of the class.
Children's mobility adds to teacher workload by increasing paperwork;
the total number of children for whom he or she is responsible may
greatly increase. Maryland teachers frequently created new class
rosters, they said, and the school was often adding new teachers or
creating additional classrooms to accommodate new children. In the
California school, teachers were responsible for an average of 39
children; the teachers may have worked with as many as 49 children,
over the course of the school year, although the district had a limit
of 30 children per classroom.
SCHOOLS GENERALLY MUST PLACE
CHILDREN WITHOUT ANY RECORDS
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:2.4
Both schools rarely used children's records to place children because
these records usually arrived days or weeks after their transfers or
not at all. This creates an educational problem because children
must be placed immediately, without records, leading to possible
inappropriate placements or lack of provision of needed support
services. Children's records transferred from another school within
the same district take 1 week or less, several teachers in the
Maryland school said; records transferred from outside the district
take 2 weeks or less or may never arrive.
Timely receipt of children's records would assist in placing children
appropriately, school staff noted, and avoid repetitive testing when
a child enters late. For the 1993-94 school year, according to a
district official, the district plans to facilitate identification of
Chapter 1-eligible children using the district's computer system. If
a child changes schools in the district, school staff can enter the
child's identification number into the computer to determine if he or
she is eligible for Chapter 1 services.
The Maryland school district also recently started maintaining a
computerized listing of children eligible to receive a free or
reduced-price lunch. These listings would speed up the resumption of
services for eligible children, a district official noted, when they
move within the district. In the California school, most teachers
rarely used information from children's records to place children in
appropriate classes, primarily because the records arrived several
weeks after the children or not at all.
TRANSFER CARDS HELPFUL IF
TIMELY AND ACCURATE
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix II:2.5
To provide information to children's new schools in a timely manner,
the Maryland school district, at the time of withdrawal, gives
children transfer cards that include information such as basic
student identification for the current school year; the current
instructional program, such as textbooks used and grades; and
Maryland competency requirements completed by the child. Such cards
may facilitate class placement before receipt of official school
records. However, problems may arise because (1) children rarely
give notice to the school before withdrawing and often leave the
school without a transfer card or (2) the school does not accurately
complete the card.
Although schools may rarely fail to accurately complete the transfer
card, this failure may have serious consequences when it does occur.
For example, after moving, one LEP child was inappropriately enrolled
in a new middle school, a Maryland district official said, because
his transfer card did not note his eligibility for ESOL services.
The school identified his need for ESOL services only after a month
of the child's nonparticipation in classes. School staff then
discovered that he should never have been withdrawn from his previous
school because it provides ESOL services to LEP children enrolled in
his new attendance area, as well as in his previous attendance area.
FEDERAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS FOR
CHILDREN WHO CHANGE SCHOOLS
FREQUENTLY: SOME ASPECTS MAY
HINDER DELIVERY OF SERVICES
========================================================= Appendix III
Some federal education programs serve migrant children and
low-achieving children in high-poverty schools who may also change
schools frequently. These federal programs provide educational and
support services through formula allocations to states and
localities. They include (1) the Migrant Education Program (MEP),
the term we use to refer to Part D, Subpart 1, Chapter 1 of Title I
of the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement
Amendments of 1988, and (2) Chapter 1, the term we use to refer to
Part A, Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies, of
Chapter 1.
MIGRANT EDUCATION PROGRAM
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1
To examine factors affecting the provision of migrant education
services to mobile students, we reviewed descriptive information
about, and recent evaluations of, the MEP. The reports we reviewed
suggested some concern about whether "currently migrant" students,
when compared with the "formerly migrant," had been given sufficient
priority by the program in the distribution of migrant education
services. As defined earlier in this report, "currently migrant"
refers to children of migrant workers who have moved from one school
district to another within the most recent 12-month period. Those
migrant children who have not changed districts within this 12-month
period, but have changed districts within the previous 5 years, are
the "formerly migrant." Approximately two-thirds of the currently
migrant children who received MEP services during the regular school
year have moved between states.
MIGRANT EDUCATION PROGRAM
PROVIDES EDUCATION AND
SUPPORT SERVICES TO CHILDREN
OF MIGRANT WORKERS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1.1
The MEP was funded under Chapter 1, of the Hawkins-Stafford
Elementary and Secondary School Improvement Amendments of 1988, at
$302.8 million for fiscal year 1993. The program provides formula
grant funds to states; these funds are to be used for supplementary
education and support services in meeting the educational needs of
migrant children whose parents are migratory agricultural workers or
fishers. The MEP funds are used to provide academic, remedial,
bilingual and multi-cultural, and vocational instruction. The most
prevalent MEP instructional services are supplementary instruction,
that is, in addition to that which would already be provided, in
reading and other language arts, as well as in mathematics. Children
generally receive MEP instructional services for about 4 hours a week
during approximately 32 weeks of the regular school year. In
addition, to assist in providing instructional continuity, the
program provides career education, special guidance counseling,
testing services, health and nutrition services, preschool programs,
and the tracking of students' educational and health records through
the Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS).
Funds are allocated through a formula, based on the following: (1)
for a calendar year, number of eligible, full-time-equivalent migrant
children, aged 3 through 21, residing within each state, and (2) the
state's average per-pupil expenditure. Eligible migrant children
comprise about 1 percent of the public elementary and secondary
school children in the nation.
NEEDS GREATER FOR CHILDREN
WHO ARE CURRENTLY MIGRANT OR
THOSE WHO HAVE CHANGED
SCHOOL DISTRICTS WITHIN THE
LAST 2 YEARS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1.2
The needs of currently migrant children, as well as those of formerly
migrant children who have changed school districts within the last 2
years, are substantially greater than those of formerly migrant
children who have not changed school districts as recently, according
to data presented in a major study of the MEP conducted by the
Research Triangle Institute (RTI).\1 The study reported the
percentage of migrant children in the regular school year program who
exhibited eight indicators of need, by number of years since the
child last changed school districts. The following are the eight
indicators of need: achieving below the 35th percentile in reading,
achieving below the 35th percentile in language arts, achieving below
the 35th percentile in math, being one or more grades behind grade
level, frequent absences, eligibility for regular Chapter 1
assistance, eligibility for free and reduced price meals, or
exhibiting severe behavioral problems, as reported in the RTI study.
Currently migrant children are twice as likely to show five or more
of the eight indicators of need as those formerly migrant children
who have not changed school districts in the last 5 years. Currently
migrant children have more or different academic needs, local project
coordinators reported, because of a lack, or discontinuity, in their
education.
Our examination of these data suggest that formerly migrant children
remaining in the same school district for 3 or more years may not
have a need for the instructional services provided by the MEP.
Migrant children who have not changed school districts within the
last 3 years do not appear to be disproportionately likely to be low
achievers, according to our analysis of the data reported in the RTI
study. For reading and language arts, about 50 percent of those who
have changed school districts within the last 2 years, on average,
fall below the 35th percentile. In comparison, teachers estimated,
about 35 percent or fewer of those who have not changed school
districts within the previous 3 years fall below the 35th percentile,
about what would be expected from an average group of children.\2
Results are generally similar for math.
Migrant children, including those who have not changed school
districts recently, are, however, likely to have other
characteristics that put them at risk educationally. These include a
greater likelihood of being poor or LEP, as well as greater needs for
support services, according to their teachers and local coordinators
of MEP projects. Such needs could make them eligible for other
programs.
--------------------
\1 Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter 1
Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(1992), pp. 28-31.
\2 Children who have changed school districts within the last 2 years
are substantially more likely than average to be low achieving, and
those who have not changed schools for 3 or more years appear no more
likely than average to be low achieving. However, children who have
changed school districts between 2 and 3 years are only somewhat more
likely to be low-achieving than average students--42 percent fall
below the 35th percentile in reading and 37 percent fall below in
language arts, according to the RTI study.
FORMERLY MIGRANT CHILDREN
RECEIVING MEP BENEFITS
OUTNUMBER CURRENTLY MIGRANT
CHILDREN RECEIVING SUCH
BENEFITS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1.3
Formerly migrant children who receive MEP services far outnumber
those who are currently migrant, despite the greater needs of the
currently migrant. Of the migrant children served during the regular
school year, about 279,000 (or 61 percent) are formerly migrant
compared with about 176,000 (or 39 percent) who are currently
migrant. About half of those who are formerly migrant have not
changed school districts in the last 3 years. In addition, about
89,000 formerly migrant children receive services in summer-term
projects, compared with about 72,000 who are currently migrant.\3
While the law requires states to give priority to currently migrant
children, they are less likely to receive migrant education services
(that is, either instructional or support services) in school-year
migrant education programs than those who are formerly migrant (80
versus 85 percent). Despite the greater needs of more recent
migrants, in allocating funds to states, the MEP funding formula does
not differentiate between currently and formerly migrant children.
Analysis of participation rates, by type of services provided by the
MEP, shows that currently migrant children are more likely than the
formerly migrant to receive instructional services during the regular
school year (60 versus 50 percent); formerly migrant children are
more likely than the currently migrant to receive support services
during the regular school year (79 versus 73 percent), according to
the RTI study. In the study, the major MEP support services listed
included medical and dental screening and treatment, home-school
liaison, and guidance counseling, among others.
--------------------
\3 Research Triangle Institute, Descriptive Study of the Chapter 1
Migrant Education Program, Volume I, Study Findings and Conclusions
(1992), p. 13.
USE OF FIRST-COME,
FIRST-SERVED BASIS TO ENROLL
CHILDREN IN MIGRANT PROJECTS
MAY PUT SOME CURRENTLY
MIGRANT CHILDREN AT A
DISADVANTAGE
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1.4
In MEP projects that cannot serve all children, the practice of
serving first those children who arrive first may put currently
migrant children at a disadvantage in obtaining services in school-
year and summer projects. Of those directors of regular school- year
projects reporting that some children were not being served because
the classes they needed were full, about 21 percent noted that
children who arrived first received priority, as stated in the RTI
report. The remaining 79 percent indicated that first priority for
such classes was given to currently migrant children or those with
the greatest educational needs. Almost all summer project directors
noted that when not all children could be served, children were
served on a first-come, first-served basis.
CURRENTLY MIGRANT CHILDREN
COST MORE TO RECRUIT
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:1.5
School districts, states, and regional offices are responsible for
identifying and recruiting migrant children. When a school
determines a student is migrant, his or her name is sent to a
recruiter in the MEP office and eligibility is determined. For
currently migrant children, recruiters may need to go to the migrant
labor camp locations to recruit children for the program; still, not
all eligible children are identified. For children who are formerly
migrant, recruiters maintain a list, determine migrant eligibility,
and recertify the children. It takes less staff time and, therefore,
it is less costly to identify formerly, rather than currently,
migrant children.
CHAPTER 1 PROGRAM
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:2
SERVICES INTENDED FOR LOW-
ACHIEVING CHILDREN IN HIGH-
POVERTY SCHOOLS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:2.1
Chapter 1 provides financial assistance to local school districts in
order to serve low-achieving children in high-poverty schools. Such
schools are more likely to have relatively higher rates of student
mobility. The goal of Chapter 1 is to provide supplementary
instructional services to children so that they will later be able to
succeed in the regular classroom without such services.
The Chapter 1 program is the largest federal elementary and secondary
education program; in fiscal year 1993, the federal appropriation for
the program was over $6.1 billion for supplementary education
services to states and school districts. Program funds are allocated
to states through a statutory formula based on (1) each state's
per-pupil expenditure for education and (2) the number of eligible
children in each county. States allocate funds to school districts
based on the number of poor children in the district. Children are
selected by local school officials to participate in Chapter 1
programs--if available in their schools and grade levels for the
subjects in which they are low achieving, for example, reading or
math--on the basis of low achievement, as measured by standardized
tests or teacher judgement.
REASONS WHY CHILDREN WHO
CHANGE SCHOOLS FREQUENTLY
ARE LESS LIKELY TO RECEIVE
CHAPTER 1 SERVICES HAVE NOT
BEEN DETERMINED
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:2.2
Department of Education officials did not have any information on the
relation between student mobility and the likelihood of receiving
Chapter 1 services. Officials did note, however, that the program
did not include any provisions related to receipt of services to
address mobility. The Department also did not have any information
that might shed light on possible reasons for differences, in the
likelihood of receiving Chapter 1 services, between low-achieving
children who change schools frequently and low-achieving children who
have never changed schools. The reasons do not appear to be related
to whether children who change schools frequently attend schools with
Chapter 1 programs. We found that low-achieving third-graders who
change schools frequently are almost as likely to attend schools with
Chapter 1 programs as those who have never changed schools, even
though the former are less likely to receive services. This was true
for children who were low achievers in either reading or math.
REGULAR CHAPTER 1 SERVICES
ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE
PROVIDED TO FORMERLY, RATHER
THAN TO CURRENTLY, MIGRANT
CHILDREN
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:2.3
Migrant children who are low achievers may be eligible to receive
regular Chapter 1 services, as are other children. However, despite
their lower achievement, currently migrant children are less likely
to receive regular Chapter 1 services than formerly migrant children
(20 percent versus 26 percent), according to the RTI study. Reasons
school personnel gave for children's nonparticipation in the regular
Chapter 1 program differed for currently and formerly migrant
children. Formerly migrant children were more likely than currently
migrant children to have test scores that were too high. Currently
migrant children were more likely than formerly migrant children to
be nonparticipants because the Chapter 1 program was not being
offered in the child's school or the child was enrolled in the MEP.
The RTI study also asked MEP coordinators if there were any local or
state policies or practices that limited the participation of migrant
children in other school programs. While the data were sparse, RTI
reported a few statements as examples that provide other reasons to
explain why migrant children were sometimes excluded from programs
such as regular
Chapter 1. These include (1) too many children for the available
services, (2) testing dates or procedures that prevent some children
who arrive after a certain point in the school year from receiving
certain services, and (3) allowance not being made for delayed
entrance into certain classes. These statements may help to explain
why low-achieving children who change schools frequently, in general,
are less likely to be served by regular Chapter 1 than those who have
never changed schools. The Department established a policy, in 1992,
that directs districts to reserve adequate funds so that migrant
children who are eligible for Chapter 1 will receive services even if
they arrive well into the school year. However, Department policy
does not extend to all mobile children, only those who are migrant.
PROPOSED STUDENT RECORD SYSTEM:
IMPROVED TIMELINESS AND
COMPARABILITY COULD FACILITATE
DELIVERY OF SERVICES TO MOBILE
CHILDREN, INCLUDING MIGRANT
CHILDREN
========================================================== Appendix IV
The National Education Goals Panel was established in 1990 to assess
and annually report on the progress of the states toward achieving
the six National Education Goals. To help in achieving some of these
goals, the panel has recommended the development of a voluntary,
uniform state and district record system for children. The panel
recommended that the data elements contained in these records be
consistent with those developed by the Council of Chief State School
Officers, under contract to the Department of Education's National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The panel noted that at the
state level, such a system would allow for the collection of accurate
and comparable data on school completers and dropouts. Such data are
needed to measure progress towards the national goal to increase the
high school graduation rate, as well as other goals related to
increasing academic achievement. The panel expects that the proposed
system, if adopted, would give districts the ability to track
children who change schools, whether within or across states.
Such a system, the panel also stated, would provide educators with
information about children's experience as they move through school;
this information, along with educators' enhanced capacity to process
information, would improve their ability to make appropriate
educational decisions. This proposed system would include student
records that are cumulative, from prekindergarten to high school
graduation. Such a cumulative system may help to ensure that mobile
children are provided with needed services since each school change
that a child makes, as well as the need for services, can be
recorded.
The expected benefits of a cumulative student record system could be
greater for mobile children than for others since they are more
likely to fall through the cracks and less likely to receive needed
services. One member of the goals panel staff noted that to diminish
the correlation between mobility and dropping out of school, these
cumulative records could be used to identify mobile student's
potential need for dropout prevention services.
COMPARABLE DATA AND FORMATS
WITHIN AND ACROSS STATES
GENERALLY DO NOT EXIST
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:1
Student records, transferred both within and across states, include
different data elements and are kept in different formats, that is,
arrangements of data. A data element is the most basic level of
information contained in a student record; examples of data elements
that are demographic include a student's sex or date of birth. Of
the 47 states responding to a survey conducted for the National
Education Goals Panel, only 7 currently have student record systems
that are comparable across districts within a state, although an
additional 29 are considering implementing such systems.\1
In general, among districts in states without comparable record
systems, there are many differences in data elements and format.
These differences add to a district's administrative burden because
the district has to evaluate, translate, and reenter data for
children from other districts into its own data elements and format.
If records are to be exchanged electronically across states, common
data elements and a standard format are needed among states, as well
as for districts within states. This is important given that many
children transfer across states during their elementary and secondary
school years.
--------------------
\1 For more information, see Aaron Pallas, "Statewide Student Record
Systems: Current Status and Future Trends," National Education Goals
Panel Report 92-02 (Mar. 26, 1992).
COMPARABLE STUDENT RECORD
SYSTEM CURRENTLY BEING
DEVELOPED
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:2
If comparable student records are to be exchanged among the nation's
schools, three tasks must be accomplished: (1) common data elements
must be determined, (2) a standard format must be developed, and (3)
the standard format must be adopted in school districts within states
and across states. At the present time, the first two tasks have
been largely completed, but state and local adoption of a standard
format has begun in only a few states.
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), with support from
a task force of state and local educators and under contract to the
Department's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES),
developed a handbook of common data elements, a thorough and
comprehensive description of terms and definitions for student data
elements. A group of state and local educators, with financial
support from NCES, developed a standard format used to arrange, or
set up a file structure for, these common data elements; it is known
as the ExPRESS (Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for
Students and Schools) format.\2 This format, because it is standard,
enables districts to more easily send, receive, and interpret student
records transferred from other districts. The American National
Standards Institute, the governing establishment for approving
standards for the electronic transmission of standard documents,
approved the ExPRESS format as the standard for electronic student
records. The task force worked to make sure that the format includes
key information for prekindergarten, elementary, and secondary
student records and that the format is appropriate for schools,
school districts, and state education agencies.\3
Using the standard common data elements and format for organizing
student record data, a technical planning subgroup\4 for the National
Education Goals Panel identified those common data elements that
could be used to create indicators to measure progress toward the
national goals. In developing these elements, the subgroup aimed to
balance the issue of need for data with availability and feasibility.
Such data would be aggregated across schools and districts to
measure, throughout the decade, state and local progress towards
achieving the six National Education Goals.
--------------------
\2 In recent years, CCSSO has provided staff support for ExPRESS.
\3 A parallel system to ExPRESS has been developed by the American
Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers for
post-secondary institutions and is known as SPEEDE (Standardization
of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange). The two
systems have been designed to be compatible so that student
information can be exchanged between school districts and
post-secondary institutions.
\4 This was one of a number of temporary work groups commissioned by
the goals panel and comprised of technical experts who work on a
detailed task and disband after the task is accomplished.
STANDARD FORMAT COULD
IMPROVE COMPARABILITY,
TIMELINESS, AND EFFICIENCY
OF STUDENT RECORD TRANSFER
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix IV:2.1
Using a standard format such as the ExPRESS system\5 could provide
(1) comparability of student information between districts, (2)
timeliness in transferring student records, and (3) efficiency in use
of resources, such as staff time. The standard format may help to
provide comparability while at the same time allowing each school
district many choices about how to keep student information for its
own purposes. This comparability is made possible as a result of
software, available from several companies, which allows the sending
district to translate data from a nonstandard to a standard format.
Similarly, for incorporating data into the student record system, the
software may be used to translate data received into the receiving
school's format.
The use of ExPRESS to electronically transfer student records may
also generate savings by cutting costs of record transfer, retesting,
and reimmunization. A cost analysis, conducted by the California
Department of Education and the Far West Laboratory for Educational
Research and Development, estimates that by using the ExPRESS format,
sending an electronic transcript may be about one-fourth of the cost
of sending a transcript by mail, a substantial savings. Given that
California alone currently spends about $13 million a year to
transfer student records, an electronic student record system could
generate substantial savings, according to the cost analysis.
Developers of the system estimate that savings will be generated even
if a sizeable portion of the state's districts do not adopt ExPRESS.
They also estimate that ExPRESS will substantially reduce the cost of
unnecessary reimmunizations or other costs related to searching for
lost immunization records, which are currently substantial because
almost half of entering transfer students fail to produce
immunization records required by the state prior to enrollment. In
addition, current student record systems require rekeying of student
information. The ExPRESS system aims to prevent rekeying of student
data, thus reducing possible errors.
--------------------
\5 The ExPRESS system in the states and districts includes two
components: (1) standard formats, as well as related processes, to
request and acknowledge receipt of student data and (2) the
electronic means for transmitting the data. Funded by NCES, a task
force of educators developed the first component; because various
means of transmitting data currently exist, including electronic
networks available commercially or through the states, the task force
did not need to develop the second component.
EXPRESS SYSTEM IS BEING
PILOTED IN CALIFORNIA
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix IV:2.2
The California state pilot of the ExPRESS system consisted, in total,
of seven school districts and six regional migrant education offices.
These participants electronically exchanged sample student data
between September and October of 1993. Project staff expect that
they will have 100 school district users of ExPRESS by the end of
November 1994 and 500 users by the end of November 1995.
About three-quarters of California districts responding to a survey
used to study the feasibility of implementing this system reported
that (1) an electronic record transfer system would be more
beneficial than burdensome, (2) they could be ready to participate in
1 to 2 years, and (3) it takes about 2 to 6 weeks for student records
to arrive using the current paper-based system. With ExPRESS, the
project director noted, student records can be sent and received in
about a day. One principal of a high-mobility school noted, "If I
could just have immunization records sent electronically, I would be
able to register children and get them into the school program so
much more quickly."
The project director of the California pilot of ExPRESS suggests that
educational services for children, especially mobile children, will
improve with the use of ExPRESS in three ways. First, the sooner the
information is available to teachers and administrators, the sooner
they can respond to a child's needs. Second, a child's
self-confidence improves when teachers and administrators have a
better sense of his or her needs. Third, when it takes less time to
do paperwork, teachers and other school personnel can spend the
additional time directly helping children, for example, making
adjustments to new schools easier. The director added that ExPRESS
would probably have the greatest benefits for schools with high
proportions of mobile children.
AUTOMATED DISTRICTS, USING
SAVINGS FROM LOWER RECORD
TRANSFER COSTS, MAY BE ABLE
TO PAY FOR START-UP COSTS
WITHIN 5 YEARS
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix IV:2.3
Districts that have already automated their record transfer systems
are expected to recover the start-up costs associated with
implementing ExPRESS in less than 5 years, according to the analysis
conducted by the Far West Laboratory and the California Department of
Education; after this period, net savings are anticipated. However,
the costs of implementing ExPRESS in nonautomated districts are
expected to outweigh the benefits for at least 5 years, because they
must make an initial investment in additional computer equipment; the
analysis did note, however, that there may be other benefits to
becoming automated. To facilitate the adoption of ExPRESS in the
beginning, the costs for technical assistance at the state and
regional levels may increase, although the total costs of
transferring student records are expected to decrease over time.
Information on dropouts may improve and state-reporting burdens may
be eased as a result of ExPRESS, according to the California project
director. ExPRESS would enable districts to report more accurate
dropout rates by identifying where students have transferred or
whether they have dropped out of school. Although students who drop
out of school may not inform the school district, California
officials would be able to obtain basic information from a student
directory that would allow them to obtain information on whether a
student had enrolled in another school district in the state,
according to current plans. ExPRESS could also be used to streamline
state and federal reporting requirements by making it easier to
aggregate and report student data; such streamlining may help school
districts that find the state's 44 paper reporting requirements
tedious. ExPRESS may also be used to exchange data between school
districts and social service agencies; the project director believes
that this will be an improvement over the current paper-based system
and may enable more comprehensive services to be provided to
children.
LOS ANGELES DISTRICT PILOTS
EXPRESS AS A WAY TO SEND
RECORDS TO THE MIGRANT
STUDENT RECORD CENTER
------------------------------------------------------ Appendix IV:2.4
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest
school district in the country, consists of 650,000 children, of whom
approximately 12,000 are migrants. LAUSD has already begun its pilot
of ExPRESS in order to send migrant student records to the MSRTS
center in Little Rock, Arkansas. The ExPRESS system, a district
official noted, was more timely and efficient than the current system
used to transfer migrant records. The pilot resulted in a savings in
operating expenses because less staff time was spent reentering
migrant student data into the center's student record system.
As with the implementation of many new systems, further work was
needed to resolve technical shortcomings. Staff working on the pilot
had to make modifications to the ExPRESS format to make it compatible
with the way the MSRTS center needed to receive the data. This was
necessary because the center was not able to allocate the programming
time necessary to make it possible to receive the records in the
original ExPRESS format because the Department of Education did not
allow the center to make substantial changes. This was because of
the Department's plan to recompete for the center's contract.
EXPRESS ACTIVITY IN OTHER
STATES
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:3
The State Department of Education in Florida has conducted a pilot of
the ExPRESS system for sending student records electronically;
Florida plans to have all districts use the ExPRESS system within the
next few years. School officials in Florida and California plan to
be able to exchange records within a year. Plans to implement
ExPRESS are also under way in Washington and Arizona. As other
states implement the ExPRESS system, transfer of comparable student
records can take place across, as well as within, states. While they
have not yet exchanged electronic student records between school
districts, a few districts in the states of Illinois, Maryland,
Oregon, and Texas (1) have used this electronic system to send
student transcript data to some postsecondary institutions attended
by large numbers of the districts' graduates or (2) are currently
conducting such pilots. Other states have expressed an interest in
further evaluating this system.
CONCERNS ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:4
Concerns have frequently been expressed about the problem of
confidentiality if ExPRESS is used to electronically transfer student
data. The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974
dictates the content, use of, and access to student record data.
Those expressing concern fear that (1) the use of computers may make
it more likely that confidentiality laws will be violated and (2)
student information will be accessed by parties other than school
districts. Proponents of ExPRESS suggest that by incorporating
security procedures, computers may provide more effective ways to
safeguard student data than those available under a paper-based
system, which uses the mail. In addition, these proponents note,
using the ExPRESS system, student records can be sent directly to
staff at the school level, those who would receive these records
under a paper-based system. California is currently reexamining its
records policies to determine possible ways to better ensure
confidentiality of student records, while at the same time trying to
improve the targeting of services to those children who need them.
LITTLE EVALUATION DATA ON THE
EXPRESS SYSTEM CURRENTLY
AVAILABLE
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:5
Caution may be appropriate about the expected benefits of the ExPRESS
system, since little evaluation data are currently available.
Although a preliminary evaluation of the ExPRESS system pilot in
California was completed in December 1993, early results provide
little evidence of statewide impact. Currently available information
about estimated benefits is based on expected outcomes--for example,
reductions in the number of children for whom immunization data are
unavailable or the time spent rekeying data--rather than on
large-scale evaluations of actual operations. It will be some time
before these types of evaluations can be made.
(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix V
COMMENTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION
========================================================== Appendix IV
(See figure in printed edition.)
MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix VI
HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND HUMAN
SERVICES DIVISION,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Beatrice F. Birman, Assistant Director, (202) 512-7008
Ellen Kehoe Schwartz, Evaluator-in-Charge
Veronica Scott, Evaluator
James C. Cosgrove, Adviser
Wayne Dow, Adviser
Ann McDermott, Publishing Adviser
Laurel Rabin, Reports Analyst