First a foster child lands in a strange family; then gets shuffled into a classroom filled with more strangers. Math assignments are different. Books carry titles the child has never seen before. Even the location of the toilet stalls creates a puzzle. Yet this is school for thousands of school-age children who become wards of the state.
School encompasses an entire world for children; it's what they do for over six hours a day. Imagine, then, how they feel trying to maneuver through a vast, unfamiliar educational universe�at the same time coping with a new home, new adult authorities, new rules.
Foster children drop out from school at twice the rate of other children, a 1997 study shows. Researchers generally attribute this greater risk to repeated transfers from one foster home to the next, where valuable credits, school records and social networks are lost and curriculums and standards differ.
Many of these children arrive with impairments due to prenatal drug and alcohol exposure. Further, foster children are estimated to lose six months of emotional development with each new placement. So a 14-year-old with four lifetime placements is closer in age emotionally to a 12-year-old�a clear challenge in any classroom.
How do these children cope? And how can teachers, foster parents and other authorities better guide these most vulnerable children?
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