Increasing the Educational Stability of Students in Foster Care

Rafael López, Commissioner, Administration on Children, Youth and Families

We are thrilled that the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) first guidance on Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) focuses squarely on the academic achievement of children and youth in foster care. We worked closely with our ED partners to develop this joint guidance  (PDF), which highlights promising practices for ensuring the educational stability of our nation’s students in foster care and recommends strategies for improving partnerships between educational and child welfare agencies.

Students in foster care are more likely than their peers to repeat gradelevels and are less likely than their peers to graduate from high school. These troubling outcomes are in large part due to the high mobility many children and youth in foster care experience.

When a student in foster care changes schools multiple times over the course of their life, the discontinuity in their educational experience – often compounded by delays in their re-enrollment at a new school – all too frequently results in poor achievement in the classroom.

In May, researchers at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), funded by an Institute of Education Sciences’ Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships In Education Research grant, released Every Transition Counts: Educational Stability of Colorado’s Students in Foster Care . This report details the detrimental impacts that unplanned school changes have on the state’s 4,400 students living in foster care.

Researchers found that more than half of Colorado’s students in foster care change schools at least once every school year, while 9% of these students change schools three or more times in a single school year. Using these data points, researchers at UNC identified correlations between the increased mobility of students in foster care and the below-average graduation rates of this vulnerable population. Only 28.5% of the students in foster care tracked for this study graduated from high school within four years, a rate well below Colorado’s average graduation rate of approximately 74% during the same period. Researchers also found that the first few school changes are likely to have the greatest effect on whether students earn a high school credential.

Decision makers across Colorado, including educational and child welfare agencies, are now using the results of this study to enact policy changes aimed at improving the educational experience of students in foster care.

Achieving educational stability and supporting academic achievement for the approximately 270,000 students in foster care requires a different kind of partnership. The passage of ESSA provides an important opportunity for educational and child welfare agencies to better address the unique needs of our students in foster care.

Behind every single data point is a child who has hopes and dreams of a better life. Working together to ensure educational stability and academic success for students in foster care may not always be easy, but our children deserve nothing less.

The Institute of Education Sciences currently has several funding opportunities for conducting research on students in foster care and other highly mobile student populations. For more information, see A New Research Spotlight on Educating Highly Mobile Students .