Reply #7: Transience is one of the primary predictors of school failure

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I used to do educational research for a textbook publisher. They wanted to know 1) why kids failed and 2) why educational costs (K-12) were skyrocketing.

The second was easy, if surprising: Most of the cost increases at the time were being driven by huge increases in the need to spend on Special Ed.

The first is more complex, but boiled down to poverty and transience. If you're always hopping around to different schools because of financial problems, your chances for academic success are slim. Migrant worker children are most affected by this, but the non-migrant poor (like the people profiled in the article) also end up moving a lot.

If you're interested in this topic, the US Dept of Education is an amazing resource for statistics on education and outcomes.