Meanwhile, most of the students who transferred out of HOPE VI schools have dispersed widely, landing in 420 public schools, mostly on the South and West sides. Many displaced families moved into the predominantly African-American communities of Englewood, Austin, South Shore, Grand Boulevard and the Near West Side. Judging from interviews with principals at over a dozen receiving schools, the displaced children, arriving only a few at a time, often receive no special attention. School officials say they have taken a number of steps to ease the transition for CHA families, such as limited transportation assistance for parents and bridge funding for schools with declining enrollment. However, some principals interviewed for this report were unaware of these transit measures.
Research suggests that's an appropriate goal.
Each time a child moves, he or she loses a bit of educational momentum, reports University of Chicago researcher David Kerbow, who has studied student mobility extensively. If students stay put after a single move, they can recover what they missed in a year or two, he says, but if they continue to transfer from school to school, the damage is more difficult to overcome. Independent coverage of Chicago school reform since 1989.