How Homelessness and Systems Involvement Affect K–12 Success

A new report sum­ma­rizes a decade of research on the fac­tors that con­tribute to, or detract from, young people’s abil­i­ty to access and suc­ceed in K–12 school­ing when they are expe­ri­enc­ing fos­ter care, the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem or home­less­ness during.

Fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, A Land­scape Scan of Research on the Edu­ca­tion of Young Peo­ple in the Unit­ed States Who Expe­ri­ence Fos­ter Care, Incar­cer­a­tion, and/​or Home­less­ness sur­faces gaps and oppor­tu­ni­ties for future inquiry and invest­ment in research. It also iden­ti­fies ways to make the edu­ca­tion of this pop­u­la­tion — which includes more than 1.6 mil­lion young peo­ple in Amer­i­ca — a stronger pri­or­i­ty for schools and deci­sion makers.

By syn­the­siz­ing exist­ing knowl­edge and iden­ti­fy­ing research gaps, the report serves as a valu­able resource for researchers, edu­ca­tors, prac­ti­tion­ers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers who serve young people.

Research Approach

Authors Stephanie Malia Krauss, Mad­dy Day, Thad­deus Fer­ber and Danielle Wal­lis ana­lyzed more than 200 stud­ies focus­ing on the K–12 edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ences of young peo­ple fac­ing home­less­ness or sys­tem involve­ment. Their review included:

• a scan of more than 400 research arti­cles and reports;
• a deep dive into 10 fed­er­al clear­ing­hous­es con­tain­ing stud­ies on young peo­ple; and
• 20 expert inter­views and two focus groups with lead­ing researchers.

The report also includes an exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry and an Airtable data­base of over 200 rel­e­vant resources avail­able to the public.

Research Find­ings

Effec­tive Strate­gies for Stu­dent Success

A Land­scape Scan iden­ti­fies sev­er­al inter­ven­tion and pre­ven­tion strate­gies that sup­port young peo­ple in these sys­tems, including:

• com­pre­hen­sive wrap­around ser­vices, such as indi­vid­ual tutoring;
• trau­ma-informed practices;
• staff train­ing on stu­dent behav­ioral respons­es; and
• poli­cies and prac­tices pro­mot­ing edu­ca­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing sys­tem transitions.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion among schools, agen­cies and fam­i­lies is essen­tial, with research sug­gest­ing the need for per­son­al­ized, con­text-spe­cif­ic sup­port tai­lored to young people’s expe­ri­ences.

Chal­lenges in Research and Data Collection

Despite the impor­tance of this top­ic, the report’s authors found a lack of stud­ies in fed­er­al clear­ing­hous­es focused on the aca­d­e­m­ic expe­ri­ences and suc­cess­es of these young peo­ple. Bar­ri­ers included:

• pri­va­cy con­cerns and bureau­crat­ic obsta­cles lim­it­ing access to stu­dent-lev­el data;
• sys­temic and logis­ti­cal chal­lenges lead­ing to incom­plete and inac­cu­rate datasets; and
• fund­ing con­straints hin­der­ing researchers track­ing of high­ly mobile populations.

Key Research Opportunities

The study high­lights promis­ing areas for future research, including:

• inter­sec­tion­al and cross-dis­ci­pli­nary research to cap­ture the com­plex­i­ty of stu­dent experiences;
• par­tic­i­pa­to­ry research meth­ods that engage young peo­ple directly;
• lon­gi­tu­di­nal stud­ies track­ing stu­dents over time; and
• pre­ven­tion and inter­ven­tion stud­ies to iden­ti­fy effec­tive ear­ly supports.

Future Research Priorities

Rec­og­niz­ing the need for more research on the K–12 edu­ca­tion of young peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness, fos­ter care and incar­cer­a­tion, A Land­scape Scan points to sev­er­al future pri­or­i­ties. These include:

• sus­tain­ing and expand­ing research part­ner­ships and centers;
• improve­ment of col­lab­o­ra­tion and data shar­ing sys­tems; and
• trans­la­tion of research find­ings into imple­men­ta­tion tools and practices.

Sus­tained com­mit­ment, fund­ing and vis­i­bil­i­ty are crit­i­cal to build­ing a stronger evi­dence base that can improve edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ences and out­comes of school-age young peo­ple who expe­ri­ence home­less­ness, fos­ter care or incarceration.

Down­load the report