This morning on KPOJ’s The Thom Hartmann Show I shared my concerns with listeners about the homeless crisis being faced by our nation and in particular about the problems faced by homeless students in Oregon. You can download the podcast of the interview from the KPOJ website (click on the January 16th show).
During the sermon I delivered this Sunday at our MLK tribute service I also talked about homelessness and public education. The audio of the sermon can be downloaded here.
Here is what I basically said on the air this morning and during my sermon on Sunday dealing specifically with the issue of education:
When most of us think about how to help those who are homeless we turn our attention to volunteering with shelters or soup kitchens. Yet for many of those living on our streets another issue has become critical: access to public education. Unfortunately, in Multnomah County we are not doing all that we can to address the needs of homeless students.
Almost everyone agrees that getting homeless students into public schools where they have the full range of educational opportunities as every other student is a key to their eventual success in life.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that some communities have sought to keep homeless students out of public schools and set-up separate schools to serve homeless children. Separate, however, is never equal.
Federal law states that the use of federal dollars on separate schools is illegal and advocates for the homeless – like the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth – argue correctly that separate schools do not offer the full range of services that public schools do. Bi-partisan leaders in Congress, education groups, civil rights organizations, and the United Church of Christ all support making sure homeless children can access public schools and oppose separate schools.
Multnomah County, however, funds such a separate school instead of working to integrate students into the public system. The Community Transitional School receives over $52,000 from Multnomah County each year. Students at this private facility are not subject to the same testing as public school students and the Multnomah County contract provides no real measurable outcomes for the program to achieve. The Portland and Parkrose school districts, both with high numbers of homeless students, operate under-funded programs without county support.
A recent study by the US Conference of Mayors – and confirmed by tallies of people who are homeless in Oregon – show that families with homeless children make up nearly half the homeless population. 13,159 homeless students attended Oregon public schools during 2005-2006.
When students at separate schools are tested the results are discouraging. Results released in December from the Pappas School in Arizona, the granddaddy of all separate schools and the model for the Community Transitional School, showed that homeless kids in that program fared worse than homeless kids in public schools in both math and reading in every grade level.
"We have learned over the years that model homeless education programs are those that keep children stable in their schools of origin, remove barriers to enrollment, attendance, and success, and afford homeless children and youth every opportunity to participate in school activities,” says Barbara Duffield, public policy director for National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
In some cases students at the Community Transitional School have stayed there for years and they are now working to build a permanent facility. It will not be money well spent. Separate schools always fail in their primary obligation of educating students.
Multnomah County should pull their funding from the Community Transitional School immediately and invest that money in public school programs. The public schools could use the support and we know their programs actually work. If the Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners is unwilling to take this important step then I challenge them to re-write the contract and require that students at the Community Transitional School be tested along side public school students. I'm confident the test scores will be as low as those shown by the Papas School.
