Reasons that High School Students Changed Their Educational Setting

This report is based on data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), a nationally representative, longitudinal study of more than 23,000 ninth-graders in 2009. The cohort was surveyed again in spring 2012 when most students were in the eleventh grade. The 2012 survey included questions about why students transferred schools or became homeschooled. Notable findings from this report include: Between the time they were surveyed in 2009 and the time they were surveyed in 2012, 11.5 percent of students in the HSLS cohort reported that they transferred schools or became homeschooled. The most frequently cited reasons for transferring or becoming homeschooled were personal or family reasons (61 percent) and moved to a new area (54 percent). Students in the lowest SES quintile reported transferring or becoming homeschooled due to school district reassignment (20 percent) and falling behind in schoolwork (39 percent) at significantly greater frequencies than students in the highest SES quintile (6 and 14 percent, respectively).