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When Karina Melendez missed multiple days of school during the winter of her sophomore year, it wasn鈥檛 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.

Melendez鈥檚 grades dropped during that time, but she was eventually able to bring them back up, graduate on time, and head to Columbia University 鈥� despite remaining in foster care through the rest of high school. Now 25 years old, Melendez credits that to the stability she found in school and the support of teachers who knew what she was going through.

But not every student who enters the foster care system receives that kind of support. Unlike Melendez, many change schools, falling academically. These students are more likely to be expelled and less likely to earn a college degree. District and school leaders don鈥檛 always know who is in foster care, leaving students to struggle with trauma, mental health issues, and missed classes on their own. Historically, little data has existed to show how students in foster care perform in each district or state.

To help address some of these challenges, the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015, mandated some changes to support students in foster care. This year, for the first time, all states are required to report how well students in foster care are performing on state tests and how many are graduating from high school. These data points are supposed to be shared publicly on states鈥� annual report cards. But right now, only 16 states are sharing both of these data points, according to 麻豆精品鈥檚 analysis of available report cards from every state and Washington, D.C.

鈥淚t鈥檚 unfortunate, I think, that it took a federal mandate to get states to shine a light on these students, but the good news is that now it is required,鈥� said Brennan McMahon Parton, director of policy and advocacy at the Data Quality Campaign. 鈥淭hat said, this information about students in foster care and their academic performance, while we think is an easier collection than some of the other new requirements in ESSA, is still new, so states are still grappling with bringing it online, making sure that it鈥檚 quality, that it鈥檚 accurate.鈥�

As of Feb. 15, graduation rates and test scores for students in foster care are noted on report cards in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C.

That doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean the other states are not compliant with federal law. Under the Obama administration, ESSA accountability rules required states to report these data points by the end of 2018. But in 2017, Congress eliminated these regulations, meaning that states simply have to report that information on their annual report cards sometime.

Most states released their report cards in December and January, but the majority didn鈥檛 include all the required data points on students in foster care. On some state report cards, the data for those students were technically publicly available but difficult to track down or decipher from a coded spreadsheet. Other state officials said data for students in foster care will be added sometime later this year.

麻豆精品 reached out to 51 state departments of education to ask when they were planning on releasing the data and what the challenges were in reporting. States listed several issues, from the need to verify data and take more time to track graduation rates to challenges aligning the education data systems with their states鈥� child welfare agencies.

In Utah, the State Board of Education is delaying releasing data on students in foster care until the fall. 鈥淭he ability to include students in foster care, homeless and military-connected students as student groups in the school report card has been built into the Utah school report card, but due to issues gathering reliable data, we have not activated those elements,鈥� Darin Nielsen, assistant superintendent of student learning, wrote in an email to 麻豆精品. 鈥淲e are working through the barriers to ensure the data we need to display is reliable and accurate.鈥�

Foster care data were delayed in Arizona because of a miscommunication about what information needed to be collected. Schools were tracking how many parents were foster parents rather than how many students were in foster care, according to Stefan Swiat, public information officer at the Arizona Department of Education. There鈥檚 no timeline on when the data will be released. 鈥淭he Accountability team doesn鈥檛 want to post the data until it鈥檚 been further vetted,鈥� Swiat said.

ESSA doesn鈥檛 specify how states should find out which students are in foster care, but most are trying to create a data-sharing agreement with their state鈥檚 child welfare agency to determine which students are in foster care at any given time. But protecting student privacy while sharing data is difficult on both the technical and legal sides.

Some experts aren鈥檛 surprised that the process is taking so long.

“From our experience in working with states, doing that data match isn鈥檛 easy to do. It takes a lot of time, often longer than expected, and requires getting the right people to the table,鈥� said Kristin Kelly, senior attorney at the American Bar Association, who works on the project.

Others argue that states shouldn鈥檛 need more time to report data points that were mandated by federal law four years ago.

There鈥檚 also an issue with how the information is being presented 鈥� sometimes in hard-to-find, separate documents apart from other subgroups like race, gender, and disability. ESSA requires that report cards be 鈥渃oncise鈥� and accessible to parents and the public, but it doesn鈥檛 give much guidance as to what this means.

鈥淚t should not take a degree in statistics or 45 clicks in pursuing an Excel chart to find the answers,鈥� said Phillip Lovell, the vice president of policy development and government relations at the Alliance for Excellent Education. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 hard to find 鈥� then we鈥檙e really doing a disservice to parents and the public by not providing them the information that federal law is intending for them to have.鈥�

For example, say you want to find out how many students in foster care in Oregon are proficient in reading. You head to the state Department of Education鈥檚 website. On the first page is a link for 鈥淧rofiles and Reports.鈥� You click on it and are led to a page that allows you to click on the state report card. You select that link and are led to another page that allows you to view a PDF of the most recent report card. You open the PDF and can find out how other subgroups are doing 鈥斅爈ike those who are economically disadvantaged or students with disabilities 鈥� but you can鈥檛 find data on students in foster care.

Instead, that information is located in a spreadsheet under a 鈥淣ew ESSA Student Groups鈥� tab on the website鈥檚 . Oregon is technically reporting the information required by law. But it requires a lot of digging and false turns to get there. (A spokesperson for the department did not respond to a question about why the data were presented in this manner.)

Anne Hyslop, assistant director for policy development and government relations at the Alliance for Excellent Education, has seen many states turning to fancy, redesigned report card websites that may look user-friendly but don鈥檛 contain the more complex information they are required to present, such as a detailed list of the performance of student subgroups. Instead, they are buried in attached spreadsheets, obscuring the outcomes of students who need the most attention.

鈥淲hether that鈥檚 students with disabilities, English learners, students in foster care, these are more vulnerable populations that face unique challenges, and so it鈥檚 really important to know precisely how they are doing, because there may be particular interventions or particular responses that a state or a district or a school could take for those students,鈥� Hyslop said.

Although there鈥檚 no requirement that a report card follow a specific format, 鈥渨e encourage them to be as simple and navigable as possible for parents and the public, because that鈥檚 who we know needs to access the information,鈥� a U.S. Department of Education spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said states have not alerted the department to any issues involving collecting data on students in foster care. The department doesn鈥檛 look at every state report card every year, but it surveys a sample of them. If a state isn鈥檛 reporting data required by ESSA, 鈥渙ur first step is to work with the state to address whatever the issue is,鈥� the spokesperson said.

Just because a state hasn鈥檛 reported the information on its report card doesn鈥檛 mean it isn鈥檛 publicly posted somewhere else. For example, Colorado hasn鈥檛 yet reported on the graduation rates of students in foster care, but it has conducted multiple years of research and released legislative on graduation rates for these students. The state鈥檚 Department of Education is following a different method of calculating graduation rates than that used by the legislature, said Director of Communications Jeremy Meyer.

In Washington state, where the data are clearly visible on the state report card, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has spent several years setting up a data-sharing agreement with the state鈥檚 child welfare agency to more accurately track students in foster care. Every night, data between the two agencies are updated so that school district liaisons can see within 24 hours which students in their district have been placed in care. That way, they can quickly connect students with counselors and make sure they鈥檙e staying afloat academically, said Peggy Carlson, the Foster Care Program鈥檚 supervisor.

Before this agreement was put in place, the state鈥檚 education department had to rely on the child welfare department notifying schools when a child was placed in foster care, but this didn鈥檛 always happen, Carlson said.

In Washington, 46 percent of students in foster care graduated from high school, compared with 80 percent of all students in the state. There is no federal definition of what constitutes a student in foster care, but in Washington, any student placed in care during his or her time in high school counts toward the four-year cohort graduation rate, said Katie Weaver Randall, director of student information for the state.

North Dakota also has a data-sharing agreement with its state鈥檚 child welfare agency. To maintain privacy, a district administrator is notified when a student is placed in foster care but is not told the reason why, said Anne Linden, assistant director in the Office of Educational Equity and Support in the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. Linden, who has been a teacher and a foster parent to 11 children, said she sees the value of federal education laws paying attention to these students. 鈥淚 personally believe it鈥檚 an excellent program supporting the stability of children in education,鈥� she said.

Some advocates for students in foster care, including Melendez, who was once in those students鈥� shoes, said sharing data is important but worry that the information can be misused. Specifically, Melendez fears that students in foster care will be seen as not capable academically and will be tracked into lower-level classes.

But some want policies to go beyond just data sharing. Brenda Triplett, the director of educational achievement at Children鈥檚 Aid, a child-welfare nonprofit in New York, would like to see states take action on the information they are collecting.

鈥淒ata just to collect and track, quite frankly, to me is moot unless there is a plan for evaluating and analyzing and addressing what the data is showing,鈥� Triplett said. 鈥淵es, we need to track, we need to have the numbers, but I don鈥檛 want this to be another empty mandate.鈥�

Triplett recommended that states, schools, and districts support policies that help students in foster care, whether through intensive tutoring, mental health counseling, or a pathway to graduation that makes the most sense for the student鈥檚 situation, such as completing a portfolio of work rather than having to pass an exit exam.

Melendez said she hopes other students in foster care can receive the same compassion teachers in high school showed her.

鈥淏eing flexible in giving students the opportunities to catch up, to make things up, to do better and perform better and improve in their classes 鈥� that human understanding and empathy goes a long way,鈥� she said.

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