Posted on 02/15/2007 10:59:14 AM PST by ReleaseTheHounds
BALTIMORE - Kudos to Del. Nancy Stocksdale for standing up for some of the most disadvantaged in the state — foster children. The Republican from Carroll County, a former teacher, recently filed legislation in the General Assembly to make scholarships available for foster children in kindergarten through high school.
They deserve them. Everything else in their lives works against them. Shuttled from home to home, the 11,000 foster children in the state — 7,000 in Baltimore City — lack stability in every corner of their lives. Many move into the system from sexually and physically abusive homes where surviving trumps all other goals. The least the state can do is give them a stable learning environment.
As Stocksdale said, “the upheaval is more than what they should have to bear.”
Studies show foster children score lower on standardized tests, drop out of school at a higher rate and are more likely as adults to become wards of the state — in prisons or on welfare rolls — than the rest of the population. After leaving the system, about 25 percent of foster children become homeless.
Is that the legacy the state would like to leave for them? And is that the best outcome for the state’s knowledge-worker hungry economy?
Besides, it’s not as if the idea came out of nowhere. It emerges from a policy proposal designed by the Maryland Public Policy Institute in 2005 and adopted by Arizona last year. And current and former foster care parents surveyed by Baltimore Research for MPPI said vouchers would improve the education for foster children.
Many former teachers fill the General Assembly, so they should understand firsthand the plight of these children. They and their colleagues should listen to foster parents, if no one else. And they must use the quickly waning days in the 2007 session to give those with so few opportunities a path to a stable and productive adulthood. Tell James Proctor Jr., D-27A, the chair of the Education and Economic Development Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee in the House, to support the bill by contacting him at 301-858-3083 or at james.proctor@house.state.md.us.
This comes just days after the Utah State House passed an important school choice measure. Hopefully more competition and choice will reinvigorate our lagging government school systems.
Pinging some good news on the "school choice" front.
Sounds like an excellent idea to me....but I wonder what kind of a chance it has in the Dem controlled Maryland General Assembly, considering the proposal is coming from a Republican..........
hey, don't worry. all she has to say is, "its for the chiiiiiiiildren!" and dems will queue up to sign :)
Sounds like scrappleface to me - the former teacher in Maryland is a republican ? Who knew there were any of those ?
Given that most children in foster care perform poorly in elementary and high school, this will not make a dent in the poor outcomes.
I work in the system, and the reality is that the abuse these kids have endured at the hands of the families is only exceeded by the abuse they suffer at the hands of the states and counties. These kids are science experiments who conclusively prove that the state is the worst parent.
They are raised in a false environment of total dependence and then turned out onto the streets when they age out. The statistics are even worse than this article presents: upwards of 50% will be homeless within the first year of aging out, and a large percentage will be incarcerated or enter mental institutions during that same period.
This program will benefit a few, but the majority of foster kids will not be able to take advantage of it.
Good news for children's education!
School choice is the way to go.........BUMP
Please ping your lists....thanks.
They actually do exist, unfortunately not in the areas where most of the problems are such as Baltimore and Montgomery Counties.
scholarships to what? private schools? college?
nice gesture but it will take more than that to help foster kids from Baltimore - some of them may be better off than kids living in dysfunctional birth familes!
You know, I'm sure your right about the awful statistics for foster kids. So why not give them a voucher and allow them to have some control and potential stability in their education. Instead of being bounced all over the city as they go from one foster home to another (and from one school to another where they have to establish new friends, new teachers, etc.) give them a voucher so they can kept something in their lives intact. Maybe that's a social experiment worth trying.
I am not against vouchers at all; I am against feel-good programs that address nonexistent needs.
They would still be bounced all over hell and back. These kids need permanent families, not some gimmick for an educational opportunity that already exists in a million different guises.
It's similar to giving parkas to starving kids in the Sahara; nothing wrong with the coats, but hardly useful for their circumstance.
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