Giving Compass' Take:

• Erin Einhorn, writing for Chalkbeat, describes the policy changes in both housing and public education that are necessary to keep kids in Detroit from changing schools. 

• What is the biggest barrier to students staying in school?  

• Read about the Detroit schools' teaching advisors program. 

Solving the damaging problem of Detroit students moving frequently between schools would require sweeping policy changes to both stabilize housing and improve the quality of public education.

But schools and policymakers could also take simpler, smaller steps to help ease a crisis created when more than one in three elementary school students change schools every year.

Here are five of them:

  1. Ease of access to student records: Centralized student records databases do not prevent students from frequently changing schools, but they do allow schools to more quickly assess and acclimate their new students.
  2. Adopt a unified enrollment system: Unified enrollment systems, also known as common enrollment systems, typically involve a computerized application that allows a family to apply to a number of charter and district schools by using only one form.
  3. Expand transportation: Currently, older students can use the city’s public buses, but for the younger students too small to ride the public bus alone, busing options are few. Many schools don’t offer busing. And those that do typically offer bus service only to students who live in certain areas.
  4. Standardize curriculum: Michigan has statewide academic standards that dictate what each student should learn every year. But state officials have no way of knowing how many districts and charter schools use curriculums that comply with those standards.
  5. Hire more and better-trained staff: Hiring additional teachers would reduce class sizes and help all children, not just students who frequently change schools.

Read the full article about stop students from changing schools by Erin Einhorn at Chalkbeat