Tackling student mobility 

A new article published in the American Educational Research Journal describes a trial to test whether students' mobility (changing schools) in early elementary school was reduced through an intervention called Families and Schools Together (FAST). FAST is an intensive eight-week multifamily afterschool program designed to empower parents, promote child resilience, and improve trust and shared expectations within and between families and among parents and school staff. The intervention has been successfully replicated and implemented across diverse settings within 45 states in the U.S. and internationally.

The trial was a cluster-randomized field experiment which took place in 52 predominantly Hispanic elementary schools in San Antonio, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona. Half the schools were selected to receive the intervention (26 FAST schools) and half were selected to continue with business as usual (26 control schools). The results showed that FAST failed to reduce mobility overall but substantially reduced the mobility of Black students, who were especially likely to change schools. The authors suggest that improved relationships among families may help to explain this finding.

A forthcoming issue of Better: Evidence-based Education will look at the issue of parents and schools.

Johns Hopkins University 

Research in Brief

News Blast