On the 19th the Senate HELP Committee started working on the long overdue overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
One group of children’s advocates will be keeping a tight focus on educational outcomes and opportunities for children living in foster care environments. As is hardly surprising in this day and age they used technology to do it.
David Kirp wrote on The Huffington Post the day before:
Using the latest in webcasting technology, two organizations — Fostering Media Connections and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute — will create a “National Conversation” in which teachers and students In California, researchers in Illinois and policymakers in Washington, D.C. discuss hurdles and strategies in improving educational outcomes for students in foster care.
In addition, the organizers will release an “Action Guide” laden with research, legislative history, on-the-ground journalistic accounts and a broad range of recommendations.
Kirp was actually asked to write the foreward to the action guide, an eloquent piece of writing that appears in its entirety as part of his post- The Public Equivalent of Love. I highly advise giving it a once over.
The National Conversation included a variety of participants including Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), Acting Assistant Secretary to the Administration and Children and Families George Sheldon, Research Fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Cheryl Smithgall, Foster Youth Carey Sommer, Educator Mike Jones, Educational Mentor Jetaine Hart and a group of CCAI Foster Youth Interns.
Too often do provisions for foster children only appear as small portions of other policies, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act. Foster kids face their own unique set of challenges, many of which stem from the impermanence of their environment. So many of them bounce from home to home and from school to school and as a result often feel as though there is no fixed anchor they can grasp.
As I stated at the beginning the Senate HELP committee is debating updates to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These are supposed to include national level guidelines for streamlining the process when foster kids have to change schools. The aim is a smoother and faster transition. As more information becomes available about the Action Plan and the legislation we will be sharing it here.
