Press Release: New Study Shows Foster Children Struggle in Education

Click here for footage of the event.

***PRESS RELEASE***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 23, 2010

CONTACT: Daniel Heimpel, 510.334.8636/dheimpel@fosteringmediaconnections.org or Emily Collins, 202.544.8500/ Emily@ccainstitute.org

Back to School, Back to Instability: New Study Shows Foster Children Struggle in Math, English and Other Standardized Tests

Bipartisan Group of Hill Leaders and DC ‘Real Housewife’ Stacie Scott Turner Call for Change, Equal Opportunity

WASHINGTON, DC — As families engage in familiar back-to-school rituals, early new data shows that the educational playing field is not level for children in foster care, whose academic careers are often impacted by multiple school relocations. Foster youth persistently score lower than their peers in all educational measures. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) and Fostering Media Connections (FMC) today released preliminary findings from a pilot program conducted by the California Partnership for Achieving Student Success (Cal-PASS) which indicate that foster youth in four counties in California are less likely than their closely matched peers and the general student population to achieve proficiency in English and math at all grade levels.

Sample preliminary results found that one in 10 foster youth are proficient in math by the 11th grade; just over two in 10 foster youth will be proficient in English by the 11th grade.  The full findings of the Cal-PASS pilot project will be released this winter.  In reviewing the preliminary results of this study and others like it, Senators Mary Landrieu and Chuck Grassley, Representatives Jim McDermott and Michele Bachmann, and former foster child turned reality TV personality Stacie Scott Turner called on Governors, their fellow Members of Congress and the Administration to take immediate action to reverse this disturbing trend.

The compelling testimony of two former youth helped to put a face on the reality the numbers represent.  Sokhom Mao was placed in a stable environment, protected by a 2004 California law that requires that youth in care have the chance to stay in the same school despite a change in placement. “While in foster care, it was very important to not change schools while I was changing placements. That stability allowed me to graduate from high school successfully and helped me retain my entire high school course curriculum. That landed me in San Francisco State University, where I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice.”  Conversely, Christina Miranda told of attending 10 different schools, four different schools in high school alone. “I remember moving a lot and that was pretty painful. I had the realization that I wasn’t a normal student with a normal life. I remember feeling like there was no reason to try because I knew I was going to leave anyway.”

Former foster child and star of Bravo’s Real Housewives of DC Stacie Scott Turner shared her story and those of the children she counsels through Extra-Ordinary Life, a program for girls in foster care. “Many people don’t understand what foster children face: an unstable home, lack of parental influence and moving from place to place makes focusing on school five times as difficult.  When we can ensure foster children are supported and nurtured and can focus on education we will start to see results and level the playing field between them and a general population that often takes their stability and education for granted.”

“While lower educational outcomes always signal a need for reform, what makes these numbers even more disturbing is we know they do not accurately reflect these youth’s academic potential,” said Kathleen Strottman, Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. “The fact that they can perform at all, in light of the constant changes in school and other trauma in their lives, is alone a testament to their ability.”

On average, foster children move to new foster homes and into new schools one to two times per year,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption and Senate Caucus on Foster Youth.  “I have met youth who have attended over 10 high schools in four years. Research has shown each move can set students back as many as six months academically, and leads to increased dropout rates. Fortunately, this is a problem that has a solution. Building upon the Fostering Connections to Success Act, which calls for an increased focus on school stability, Congressional advocates of foster youth have drafted several pieces of legislation mandating that state and local education agencies work in coordination with child welfare agencies to eliminate enrollment delays and difficulties in transferring course credits. Senator Franken’s Fostering Success in Education Act, in particular, is a great example of legislation that would ensure that both education and child welfare entities take responsibility for the educational outcomes of youth in care.”

“One of the primary goals of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth is to get these kids involved in shaping the policy that affects them.  We’ve heard firsthand from foster youth how hard it is to stay in the same school.  A foster youth might get a new placement that’s a few miles from his current school, yet have to switch schools because of school district rules.  New schools don’t always accept paperwork from the old school.  Congress needs to look at whatever can be done to ease the burden on these kids and help them make healthy, lasting connections.  And we’ll continue to hear from the kids themselves as we move forward on policy,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

“For children who have been separated from their families and brought into foster care, the need for stability is critical.  Teachers, coaches, and classmates can provide comfort and a sense of continuity for foster care youth, making it imperative that every effort is made to keep these children in their school of origin.  The upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is an opportunity to make educational stability a reality by ensuring federal education law includes the parallel protections to the child welfare protections enacted in Fostering Connections,” said Congressman Jim McDermott, (D-Wash.), sponsor of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act.

“As a foster parent of 23 children, I understand the unique challenges foster children face. Many of them have endured difficult situations and face uncertainty at every turn.  Stability can be found for these children through a daily routine, friends at school, and teachers who are familiar with their individual needs.  That’s why I introduced the bipartisan School Choice for Foster Kids Act which would allow foster parents to send any foster child to his or her original school through education vouchers from the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program. Our nation’s foster children must be given an opportunity to succeed in spite of the hardships they experience,” said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

“I hope the Cal-PASS study will help us stay focused on the need for education and child welfare systems to work side by side to improve educational outcomes for children in foster care. Together we can ensure that hundreds of thousands of children in foster care have the same opportunity for a stable, secure education as their classmates and friends,” said Molly McGrath

The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (www.ccainstitute.org) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that strives to be an objective, educational resource for information critical to advancing the efforts of federal policymakers on behalf of children in need of homes.  CCAI is available on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ccainstitute), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ccainstitute), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/ccainstitute), and our blog (https://ccainstitute.wordpress.com/).

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Stacie Scott Turner with former foster youth Christina Miranda and Sokhom Mao
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Wash.)
'Real Housewife of DC' and former foster child Stacie Scott Turner
From left: Daniel Heimpel, Sokhom Mao, Molly McGrath, Kathleen Strottman, Christina Miranda, Stacie Scott Turner, Jason Turner

Media Advisory: Back to School, Back to Instability

***MEDIA ADVISORY***

Back to School, Back to Instability: New Study Shows Foster Children Struggle in Math, English and other standardized tests

Bipartisan Hill Leaders and DC ‘Real Housewife’ Stacie Scott Turner Call for Change, Equal Opportunity

Washington, DC— As millions of hopeful children engage in familiar back-to-school rituals, early new data shows that the educational playing field is not level for children in foster care, whose academic careers are often impacted by multiple school relocations. Foster youth persistently score lower than their peers in all educational measures.  The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and Fostering Media Connections will release new data that supports their call to action at a press conference on Thursday, September 23rd from 12:00—1:00PM in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, room SVC 215.

WHO:

  • Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.): Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth and Co-Chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption
  • Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): Founder and Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth; Ranking Member of the Finance Committee which oversees child welfare financing.
  • Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.): Sponsor of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act.
  • Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.): Sponsor of the School Choice for Foster Kids Act and foster mom.
  • Stacie Scott Turner: Star of Bravo’s Real Housewives of DC, former foster child and founder of Extra-Ordinary Life, which provides a new outlook on life for girls in foster care.
  • Sokhom Mao: Former Foster Youth from California who benefited from state law that ensures educational stability.
  • Christina Miranda: Former foster youth who experienced three moves in elementary school, three in middle school and an additional four in high school.
  • Molly McGrath: Baltimore City Department of Social Services Director who outlines the need for collaboration between education and child welfare.

WHAT:

As children head back to school, this event will identify the factors that impact educational outcomes for youth in foster care, and ways the federal government might act to address them.

WHEN:

Thursday Sept. 23, 2010 from 12:00PM—1:00PM

WHERE:

U.S. Capitol Visitor Center SVC 215

CONTACT:

For more information about the event, please contact Daniel Heimpel with Fostering Media Connections at 510.334.8636, or dheimpel@fosteringmediaconnections.org.

The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (www.ccainstitute.org) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that strives to be an objective, educational resource for information critical to advancing the efforts of federal policymakers on behalf of children in need of homes.  Please follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ccainstitute), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ccainstitute), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/ccainstitute), and our blog (https://ccainstitute.wordpress.com/).

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Ethiopia: Day One

Soon after arriving in Addis Ababa, the delegation met with the Embassy, USAID, and other high level officials involving key stakeholders in the Ethiopian orphan crisis.  CCAI will soon be releasing a full report outlining the goals, activities, and most importantly outcomes of this trip, but below are several highlights of the first days in Ethiopia.

The first morning we toured Buckner Bright Hope Ethiopia which provides services to children and families.  This organization has only been operating for several years, but has already begun transforming the community!  It was incredible to see the highest standards of care and nurturing that these children were receiving through the loving arms of Buckner Bright Hope’s staff.

Ambassador Susan Jacobs finds a loving friend who wants to snuggle during her visit to the Assessment Center.
Senator Landrieu comforts to a little child who is upset as he is about to settle into for a nap.
Jack Gerard, CCAI Board Member, with a young boy at Buckner’s Assessment Center.
Foster families from Buckner Bright Hope’s foster program

As a result of the heart-tugging and inspiring experiences of the day, we then returned to our hotel for a discussion with representatives from the Embassies of France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, as well as UNICEF Ethiopia.  The delegation then moved on to a round table prepared by UNICEF Ethiopia and USAID which brought together panelists from the full continuum of care for orphaned children in Ethiopia – ranging from institutional care, child protection, foster care, domestic adoption, and intercountry adoption.

All of these experiences and conversation are laying the foundation to promote relations between the U.S. and Ethiopia in an effort to protect orphans and vulnerable children and promote sound adoption practices.

New data on children in foster care released

Just the other week, the Children’s Bureau released new AFCARS data.  The below chart taken from their website shows the data trends from FY2002- FY2009.


I was looking over the data with my colleague, and being a numbers guy (our finance director to be exact) David and I decided to look a little closer at the numbers.  We noticed two significant trends:

1) Why are so many more children being adopted out of foster care than ever before?

Between 2002-2009, the number of children waiting to be adopted decreased from 134,000 to 115,000.  However, the number of children adopted with public child welfare agency involvement actually increased from 51,000 to 57,000 over the same time period.

This represents a substantial increase in the percentage of children waiting to be adopted who were actually adopted.  In 2002, only 34% of waiting children were adopted but by 2009 that had increased to over 49% of waiting children who were adopted.  The AFCARS data also shows that the percentage of children in care whose parental rights have been terminated and were then adopted increased from 68% to 81% between 2002 and 2009.

The problem is that no real answer exists for this question.  Several factors may be influencing this decrease in the number of waiting children and the spike in adoptions out of foster care:

  • Policies continue to improve to promote more efficient processing of adoptions.  This is in response to efforts to minimize time in care or prevent placement in foster care.
  • Over the past few years, adopting internationally has increasingly become more difficult due to changes in foreign country’s own adoption practices.  According to the State Department, international adoption is down from a high of almost 23,000 in 2004 to under 13,000 in 2009.
  • Campaigns such as National Adoption Day , AdoptUsKids/Ad Council PSAs, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, and many others to encourage foster care adoption and recruit adoptive parents have increased over the years

2) Why are there so many less children in foster care now?

Between 2002-2009, the number of children in foster care decreased by almost 100,000 from 523,000 to 424,000.  The number of children entering care has decreased by as little as 7% or as much as 17% each year.  This is due in part to increasing programs and funding to assist families and keep children out of the system.

In an Associated Press article examining this topic, Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform shares, “Now, finally, it’s sinking in that most cases labeled ‘neglect’ — the single largest category of maltreatment — are really poverty, and it makes more sense to try to deal with the poverty than destroy the family.”

CCAI heads to the UK to tackle orphan issues globally

As part of CCAI’s 20/20 Vision Program, I had the privilege of coordinating a congressional delegation to the United Kingdom and Ethiopia during the August recess here on Capitol Hill.  Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) led the official Congressional delegation and was joined by Ambassador Susan Jacobs, the recently appointed Special Advisor to the Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues (reporting directly to Secretary Clinton), as well as Mr. Gary Newton, USAID’s Special Advisor for Orphans and Children.

CCAI is honored to be a part of what we believe is essential to moving Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) policy forward in the world by bringing the government sectors together along with the private sectors and faith-based groups.  Toward that end, CCAI and Senator Landrieu’s delegation coordinated with the Legatum Institute of London and Buckner Bright Hope of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Buckner International of Dallas Texas to create an incredible itinerary to raise awareness of the children around the globe in need of permanent, loving families.

The delegation’s visit to London was graciously hosted by Dr. Jean Geran and Natalie Gonnella at the Legatum Institute, who also launched the fabulous EACH Campaign in March, 2010.  Legatum Institute arranged for Senator Landrieu to meet with two Members of Parliament – Mr. Jim Fitzpatrick and Mr. Nick Smith – to discuss the issues surrounding orphans and vulnerable children and the legislative work of the U.S. members of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption toward finding permanency for these children.   The meeting was followed by a larger program with a panel of presenters from the United Kingdom and United States, including Secretary Andrew Mitchell, the U.K.’s Secretary of State for International Development.

The delegation then concluded their short visit to London with a tour of the Foundling Museum, which tells the story of London’s first home for abandoned children – the Foundling Hospital.  The Foundling Hospital’s work was supported by philanthropist Thomas Coram and his friends: artist William Hogarth whose beautiful pieces grace the walls of many rooms in the museum, as well as the renowned composer George Frideric Handel who regularly played his Messiah at benefit concerts for the Hospital.  The Hospital’s care for abandoned, parentless children was cutting edge in 1739, and the historical lessons the delegation heard were quite amazing.  How far we have come since that time, but how much work still remains!

After a short but quite full day in London, the delegation was off to Heathrow Airport to catch our overnight flights to Addis Ababa where we had four more days of meetings.

-Becky Weichhand, Director of Policy

Russia and Guatemala: a legislative update

Guatemala

In May 2010, a large number of families representing the Guatemala 900, an advocacy network for families whose cases still await processing, came to Washington, D.C. and held a briefing for Members of Congress. During this briefing, adoptive families laid out reasons why these cases continue to be delayed as well as ways Members of Congress might act on their behalf. Motivated by the passion and commitment of these families, several members including Senators Boxer (D-CA), Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Senator Feingold (D-WI) have been actively engaged in efforts to unite these families with their children. In late June, 76 Members signed a letter to President Colom and three other high ranking officials asking for them to take immediate action to resolve these cases.

Russia

Over the past several months, the U.S. State Department has been involved in negotiations with officials in Russia . These negotiations have been focused on coming to a memorandum of understanding between the two countries on additional safeguards that can be put in place to better protect adopted children and their families. For the most part, the dialogue between the two countries, has been positive and it is hoped a final agreement can be reached and signed soon. The events leading up to the current situation in Russia, most notably the case of the 8 year old returned to Russia by his adoptive mom, has prompted Members of Congress to introduce legislation to strengthen pre- and post-adoption support services for American adoptive families. The Supporting Adoptive Families Act (introduced by Senators Landrieu (D-LA), Klobuchar (D-MN), Brownback (R-KY) and Johnson (D-SD) would develop and expand training and resources for families adopting domestically or internationally, ensuring that both parents and children have the assistance and care they need to remain together. The bill would also address the current shortage of adoption services available to families prior to and following adoptions.