Examining Educational Needs and Outcomes of Foster Youth in a Large Urban School District

Purpose. Foster youth have been found to have lower scores on standardized tests, lower grade completion rates, and higher rates of special education needs compared to non-foster youth.  However, there has been little collaborative effort by child welfare agencies and schools to share data to track the academic progress of foster youth.  This study is part of a larger federally funded project that sought to increase collaboration between child welfare workers and schools within a large urban area in Texas.  We examined the matched data between the two systems in order to provide a snapshot of how foster youth are doing in schools and examine existing educational service disparities.

Method. The state child welfare agency identified 509 foster youth believed to attend school within a large urban school district.  Identifying information was provided to the district for matching purposes.  Of the 509 youth, only 228 were matched within the school district.  Descriptive statistics were collected on demographics, academic needs, placements, and academic achievement.   Chi square tests were run to compare the proportion of foster youth to their peers on special education and ethnicity.  Additionally, a logistic regression was conducted including age, gender, ethnicity, number of placements, and placement changes as predictors for qualification for special education services. 

Results. The mean age of the 228 matched foster youth was 11.29 (SD=3.32).  The proportion of Black foster youth (62%) was higher than the proportion of Black non foster youth within the school district (25%) while the proportion of Hispanic foster youth (27%) was lower than the proportion of non foster Hispanic youth (63%), c²(3,N=203,582)=162.71, p<.001.  Compared to the disrtict, foster youth performed worse on state standardized tests, with only 55% passing.  Additionally, the proportion of the foster youth qualifying for special education services (18%) was signifcantly higher than the proportion of non foster youth within the district (8%), c²(1,N=203,354)=62.05, p<.001.  Results from the logistic regression analysis looking at qualification for special needs services showed that the final model, which included ethncity, total placements, and average placement changes per year, was statistically significant, c²(5,N=228)=39.27, p<.001.  White foster youth were 4 times more likely than Black foster youth and 5 times more likely than Hispanic foster youth to be qualified for special needs services.  For every increase in placement, foster youth were 26% more likely to be qualified for services.  However, as the average number of placements per year increased by one, foster youth were 55% less likely to be qualified for services.   

Conclusion. Results highlight the need for child welfare and school districts to regularly share information.  Over half the data in the study could not be matched suggesting that the child welfare agency perhaps had not regularly updated school information for children.  While foster youth in this study qualified for special needs services more often than their peers, disparities exists within the foster youth around who qualifies for services.  Findings suggest that minority foster youth who change placements frequently may have some special needs that are not easily met in their placements.