In a first-of-its-kind academic portrait of California’s foster children, researchers last week unveiled a report showing that students living in foster homes are twice as likely to drop out of school as other students and significantly trail their low-income peers on other academic measures.
Twenty-nine percent of students in foster care reached proficiency or higher on the California state exam in English/language arts in 2009-10, compared with 40 percent of students who are from low-income families and 53 percent of all students. In 2010, 58 percent of students in foster care graduated from high school. By comparison, 79 percent of low-income students and 84 percent of all students in the class of 2010 earned a high school diploma.
The report was published by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd, in San Francisco.
