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California fails to implement federal education law, denying students in foster care their right to school transportation. At least 35,000 school-aged California children live in foster care today. Entering the system is, invariably, traumatic.

When Karina Melendez missed multiple days of school during the winter of her sophomore year, it wasn’t because she was willfully truant or lazy. The student, who usually got straight As, had been placed in the foster care system and was balancing class at her Bronx public high school with court appointments, meetings with lawyers and social workers, and the emotional shock of uprooting her life.

Foster youth in California schools have a rate of chronic absenteeism far higher than the general student population, according to data available for the first time from the state’s Department of Education (DOE).

Outside looking in, you may think foster youth got it made. In California, youth in foster care are eligible for several state and federal grants aimed at helping them succeed in college.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed by President Obama on December 10, 2015, and a new toolkit released by the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education can help jurisdictions implement the changes mandated by ESSA.

Her mother deported, her father incarcerated, 6-year-old V. Doe entered Rhode Island’s foster care system in 2005. By 2017, the girl-turned-teenager had changed residences no less than a dozen times as she bounced through foster homes and treatment facilities.

A $2.9 million bill aimed at improving the educational success of students who are foster youths cleared a key committee in the Colorado legislature in April. If the bill is signed by the governor, Colorado will be the first state to legislate the implementation of a federal law that compels school systems to ensure that, among other things, foster kids have a ride to school.

A new report on educational achievement for foster youth found that to help them succeed in college, targeted supports need to start years before they walk on campus.  The report, Pipeline to Success, focused specifically on the 21,186 foster youth in California’s 115 community colleges and the supports they needed to transition from high school to a successful post-secondary education. 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this month on school discipline with a topline finding that “black students, boys and students with disabilities were disproportionately disciplined (e.g., suspensions and expulsions) in K-12 public schools.”

GradNation is a national campaign that aims to raise the on-time high school graduation of homeless students to 90 percent. In efforts to drive policy and the conversation around achieving that goal, today the campaign has released a report written by Civic Enterprises and Hart Research Associates called “Hidden in Plain Sight: Homeless Students in America’s Public Schools.”