Teachers to be hired to tutor foster kids

By Craig Schneider

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Even as cash-strapped schools plan teacher layoffs, Georgia's child welfare agency is starting a program that will hire 150 teachers -- at least temporarily -- to tutor 3,000 foster children who are falling behind in school.

"We need teachers," Mark Washington, head of the state Division of Family and Children Services, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Washington said the new program, called Education 2010, expects to hire many of its certified teachers from among those who have been laid off or furloughed due to school cutbacks in this tough economy.

The program represents Georgia's first widespread concerted effort to boost the educational performance of foster children, a group that historically has struggled in school. Recognizing that foster children are more likely to fall behind, drop out and end up homeless or in jail, the program aims to keep these children from riding off the education track and into what one expert termed the "prison pipeline."

"The more we can do to help them with their education, the better they can succeed in life," Washington said.

Some of their problems are staggering, he said. Many come into state care because of traumatic issues in their lives, such as child abuse, neglect or their own behavior issues. They are removed from their home -- and often their school -- and placed in a new household and school. Many move from foster home to foster home over years, switching school to school. They fall behind, their records fall through the cracks and many drop out and fall into delinquency.

In Georgia, 42 percent of foster children in Fulton and DeKalb counties failed to meet the minimum standard last year for third grade math on the state's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, which is used to measure student capability, Washington said. That rate is about double the percentage of overall students who failed to meet the minimum standard.

By eighth grade, 59 percent of foster kids in those counties failed to meet the math standard on the CRCT, compared to 20 percent of the overall students.

The tutoring program is funded through a $7.5-million grant of federal stimulus money. A pilot program is underway in the Savannah area and it is expected to expand soon to include school districts in metro Atlanta, including Fulton, DeKalb, Cherokee, Cobb and Gwinnett counties. It will run through September and Washington said he hopes to find the money to continue it thereafter.

Georgia has been under pressure to improve the educational stability of foster children for years. Over time, the Georgia DFCS system has been criticized for shortages in staffing, bouncing children from foster home to foster home and losing children's records. The state settled a lawsuit in 2005 that demanded improvements, including educational, in the state-run foster care systems in Fulton and DeKalb counties.

The agreement required that child welfare officials provide foster parents with timely school records, said Ira Lustbader, associate director of Children's Rights Inc., the advocacy group that sued. The settlement also limits a child's moves while in state custody and pressures the state to keep a child in the same county, which could keep kids from having to switch schools as often.

In 2006, barely one-third of foster kids in the Fulton and DeKalb systems had received a high school diploma or GED by their 18th birthday.

By 2008, progress was made and 47 percent of foster kids had graduated or received a GED by that age. In Georgia, 78.9 percent of school children graduate on time.

"Obviously there is huge room for improvement,"Lustbader said. "Having another set of eyes on those kids can only help."

School districts across metro Atlanta are facing huge budget deficits. Some have decided to take steps such as trimming staff,  furloughing teachers, cutting community education and increasing class sizes.

The new DFCS tutors will work with the child's school to craft an individualized program to help the child reach grade-level performance, said DFCS chief Washington. The teachers will be hired on a contractual basis and paid between $35 to $45 an hour.

The child welfare agency is already exploring options to continue the program after the stimulus money runs out, officials said.

Washington said he understands that more than tutoring may be needed to turn around some foster kids. He said many of them are already in counseling to help them with emotional issues.

Foster children who don't make it through school find their prospects dim, said State Child Advocate Melissa Carter, who praised the program.

"Education is the key to everything," Carter said. "If the state is going to be the parent to these kids, it has to be responsible for their education."