School District Foster Home Supply and Foster Child School Mobility: An Analysis of a Potential Macro-Level Policy Tool

Background: A significant body of research has identified school mobility as problematic for the educational outcomes of children. Foster children are necessarily at increased risk for school mobility and studies such as the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth have outlined the potential problems that foster children may face as the result of school mobility. While many factors influence the likelihood that a child will experience a school transition, the supply of available foster homes in the school district from which a child experiences removal remains an unexplored but important factor that  may contribute to the likelihood that a child experiences a transition. Even under the school stabilization strategies promoted by federal policies such as the Fostering Connections Act of 2008, a lack of available foster homes seems likely to have an independent effect on the probability that a child will experience a school change upon entry into out-of-home care.

Methods: This analysis utilizes information from a unique data set constructed by establishing child-level linkages between educational enrollment data and foster care records in the state of Washington. This particular analysis focused on school-age children experiencing their first placement in out-of-home care between 2004 and 2010 (n=7,533). Of particular interest was whether children removed from school districts with relatively high supplies of foster homes would be at increased risk of experiencing a school change (for reasons other than promotion) during their first 90 days of care. The question was assessed using a multilevel logistic regression model with random effects fit at the level of 191 school districts. Variables indicating implementation of the Fostering Connections Act and additional demographic variables were also included in the analysis.

Results: The initial results of the analysis indicate a negative association between school district foster home supply and the risk of a school change. That is, in schools districts with a large supply of foster homes, the risk of a school change was low. This effect remains even after controlling for factors that may also have a significant effect on a child’s risk of a school change, such as the implementation of the Fostering Connections Act and the demographic characteristics of the children in the study. The results of the multilevel analysis also indicate significant variability in the observed effects at the school district level. The multilevel dynamics of the observed relationship will be highlighted through graphical analysis in the presentation.

Conclusions: Although prior research has established an association between placement in foster care, school mobility, and educational outcomes, little work has been done to examine specific policy tools that might be employed in order to mitigate school mobility for foster children. The results of this analysis suggest that macro-level policy interventions such as increases in the supply of foster homes could be used to decrease a child’s risk of experiencing school changes. The variability observed in the multilevel analysis, however, suggests that such interventions must be tailored to meet the specific needs of an individual locality.