Link education and child welfare data systems to make the foster care achievement gap visible and trackable¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 3 studies (2 qualitative, 1 associational), q1–q2 · 0 of 3 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The report calls for accessible, linked, comprehensive, and current education and child welfare data to inform greater cross-agency collaboration. Because the systems previously had "neither a shared definition of the foster-care population nor a common unique student identifier," students' education needs went unrecognized and unmet. Linking the data systems creates a baseline for tracking academic progress and provides information for strengthening policy and practice aimed at narrowing the achievement gap.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Cross-agency data-sharing agreements between the education and child welfare agencies, as the Arizona Department of Child Safety and Arizona Department of Education arranged

Constraints¶

• The report notes district-level counts based on students' first school of enrollment are likely an undercount because of students' changing foster care status and high school mobility

Target Learners¶

• K–12 students in foster care

Target Learning Goals¶

• Raising awareness of the academic vulnerability of students in foster care and creating a baseline for tracking their academic progress

Claims¶

• Statewide testing showed an achievement gap in mathematics and reading for Arizona students in foster care [+W]
• Insufficient data systems, LCFF funding limits, transportation barriers, and child welfare capacity constraints impede coordinated support for students in foster care [+W]
• Inconsistent terminology across agencies and restrictive data-sharing rules are central barriers to identifying and serving highly mobile youth in both states [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Provide school-placement decision-makers with richer school information and strengthen transportation implementation to support school-of-origin stability
• Develop data-sharing memoranda of understanding and shared evaluation across child- and family-serving agencies
• Broker a formal data-sharing agreement between child welfare and education agencies to identify and serve students in foster care
• Use linked cross-system data to target programs such as dropout prevention and postsecondary preparation for students in foster care
• Implement a coherent student database linking education, child welfare, mental health, and judicial systems rather than further studying data sharing

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Barrat, V. X., Berliner, B., & Felida, N. J. (2015). Arizona's Invisible Achievement Gap: Education Outcomes of Students in Foster Care in the State's Public Schools. San Francisco: WestEd. http://www.azed.gov/research-evaluation/files/2013/11/2013-a-f-technical-manual.pdf