Detroit Students Mobility Creates Challenges for Their Education
Reporters from Bridge Magazine and ChalkBeat look at how often kids change schools in Detroit.
Bridge Magazine, ChalkBeat and Outlier Media partnered to find out how often kids in Detroit change schools, and why they make frequent moves.
Parents who responded to a survey during the investigative work gave the reasons for moving their kids around “academic struggles, issues with school discipline, and personal upheavals that forced them to find a new home. But, overwhelmingly, Detroit parents said they moved their children to new schools because they wanted better for their child — a safer school, a cleaner school, the kind of school where their children could thrive.”
Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson is joined by Chastity Pratt Dawsey of Bridge Magazine and Erin Einhorn of ChalkBeat to talk about their comprehensive reporting.
Dawsey and Einhorn write:
Across the city, a recent study found that 1 in 4 students change schools every year. In elementary schools, the rate is 1 in 3. And many students make those moves during the school year. All of that movement — fueled in part by state policy in Michigan that has given Detroit one of the most robust systems of school choice in the country — has created a level of instability with serious ramifications for children and schools. It brings down test scores, drives up dropout rates, and exacerbates behavioral problems.
To hear Dawsey and Einhorn on Detroit Today, click on the audio player above.
