It's an absolutely beautiful, sunny day in downtown D.C. this Friday, but I can't seem to shake this article that I was reading this morning on the metro into work. It's not about Michelle Rhee's school reforms, or alternative certification, or pay for performance, or teacher quality, or school choice, or student achievement, or any of those very important things we pontificate about here at Fordham. It's about homeless kids. It was in a pile of articles on education that our interns gather for us each day and I started to breeze by it for something "meatier" on the aforementioned topics. But then I stopped and read.
The article centers upon homeless schoolchildren in Ohio and Michigan. We learn that Ohio had a 12 percent increase in student homelessness between 2005 and 2007, with over 13,000 kids experiencing homelessness at some point in that timeframe. Michigan had about 18,000 homeless children during the last school year, a 16 percent rise from 2006-2007. Toledo has seen a tripling of homeless kids in the last two years, Cleveland a 60 percent increase. Heavy foreclosures from our current housing crisis are apparently driving the increases. But poverty, breakdowns in families, youth runaways, drug-addicted parents, the lousy economy--a multitude of factors contribute to putting kids on the street.
I feel compelled to pause at this point to say that I'm not raising this issue as a means to advocate that K-12 schools need to be curing all of society's ills. Or that they need to meet all of the needs of kids that parents can't or won't. We've been hearing a lot about that lately and I'm not addressing that here.
I'm simply saying that I'm sad about this. Really sad. And I have no answers to put forth. And I have no policies to advocate. And I'm not angry, and I'm not complaining, and I'm not pointing fingers today. I'm just reflecting upon the reality that we have kids living everyday in cars, motels, or street corners. Yes, some are "luckier"--they live in shelters or jostle back and forth between foster homes. The article actually mentions a teenager with special needs who was evicted from his foster home halfway through his senior year. The district superintendent remarked that "We were able to find him somewhere to live--and he graduated." Supposedly a happy ending, but I wondered where that "somewhere" was.
I'm not saying that the situation is hopeless. I know there are many folks and organizations out there doing all they can to help. But these are just kids and they're living a life of instability. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that they have no home to go to after the school bell rings. They don't have a bed, or a computer, or a kitchen table at which to do homework--much less consistent meals. Ironically, a child psychologist commented that the routine of the school experience helps tremendously when kids lack it in other parts of their lives. So, school becomes the safe haven. Well, that's some solace I guess.
But I'm carrying a burden today for kids I don't even know and, like I said, just can't seem to shake it.
