Latinos now make up the single largest ethnic group in California’s public schools (California Basic Educational Data System, 1997). Unfortunately, they also have the highest dropout rate of any ethnic group (Rumberger, 1991). These facts create an obvious challenge for a state attempting to reform its education system and raise its educational productivity. This paper reports on three projects in California that have attempted to stem the tide of Latino dropouts and increase the college-going rates of this population. The three programs we review here, ALAS, AVID, and Puente, have each tested a set of strategies aimed at increasing the educational achievement of Latino students. While the aims of the programs are similar, their strategies differ according to the segment of the population they target and the ways in which they deploy their resources. There are important lessons to be learned from these programs and their impact on students and their families. Moreover, it is critically important to the future of the state that California capitalize on efforts such as these, which have been systematic, grounded in research and theory, and evaluated under stringent conditions.

Students in the United States are highly mobile. Previous research has shown that the majority of students in the United States change schools between grades 1 and 12 for reasons other than promotion from one level to another (e.g., elementary to middle school.). Research also has found that student mobility is generally detrimental to student achievement. Despite this evidence, the issue of student mobility has not received much attention from educational researchers, practitioners, or policy makers.

In this report we examine student mobility among California Latino adolescents. Student mobility may be especially important in California because of its highly mobile population. Latinos are the largest and fastest growing segment of the state population. According to California Department of Finance estimates, the Latino public-school population is projected to triple in size between 1986 and 2006, while the non-Latino public-school population is projected to decrease (see Figure 1.1). Consequently, if student mobility can be problematic for both students and schools, as previous research suggest, it is especially important to understand the nature of mobility among the Latino population.

Using longitudinal data on two samples of California students—the first a group of 8th grade students who were surveyed over a sex-year period from 1988 to 1994; and the second a group of low-income, urban Latino 7th grade students who were first studied over a six-year period from 1990 to 1996—this study examined the incidence, causes, and consequences of student mobility, particularly during high school. Throughout this study we examine differences between Latino and non-Latino white students, as well as differences among Latino students. Here we summarize some of the major findings of this study.