Educators' Perceptions of Mobile Students and the Interventions that Assist Them
March 15, 2006 |
Educators’ Perceptions of Mobile Students and the Interventions that Assist Them
by Timothy B. Bostic and Mary Angela Coleman (2006)
In the educational climate of no Child Left Behind (NCLB), school personnel are searching for any means available to help all children succeed academically and meet state standards. School teachers and administrators in Virginia are no different. All schools and school districts, in Virginia and across the country, must demonstrate through adequate yearly progress (AYP) that children are achieving state standards of education. AYP requires that schools no only show that all students are achieving state standards but also that disaggregated groups of students (e.g. black students, speakers of English as a second language, special education students) are meeting standards at acceptable levels.
In Virginia, AYP is demonstrated through students’ pass rates on the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests among other benchmarks (e.g. graduation rate). Unfortunately, there are many subgroups of school children that have difficulty passing the test. While there are specific subgroups of students about which the state must report progress, Virginia educators are concerned with the academic success of all. Though transient, or highly mobile, children are not one of the disaggregated groups about which the state must report, and because research indicates that highly mobile students do no perform well on standardized tests, there still is a concern that these students, as a group, are not as successful in passing the SOL tests as other students (Mehana & Reynolds, 1995). Further, because some schools have larger proportions of highly mobile populations than others, there is a concern that highly mobile students may negatively impact a school’s accreditation. In order to seek out the best research-based practices to help transient students pass the SOL tests and achieve academic success, research targeted at addressing the needs of these students must be conducted.
