Scholar Who Developed Arizona’s Recently-Enacted School Choice Program for Foster Care Children Outlines Similar Plan for New Mexico

For further Information, Contact:
Paul Gessing 505-264-6090

(Albuquerque, New Mexico) Parents in our neighboring state of Arizona enjoy the greatest array of school choice programs available nationwide. Earlier this year, those choices were further expanded for an especially needy group of students, when the state adopted a plan to offer children in foster care the opportunity to attend any of a wide variety of public or private schools as chosen by their guardians.

Dan Lips, an Adjunct Scholar with New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation and an Education Analyst with the Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation, who laid the intellectual framework for Arizona’s new program, has outlined a similar plan for New Mexico’s foster care kids in a new study “Providing School Choice to New Mexico Children in Foster Care: Fostering Stability and Achievement.” In his report, Lips outlines a fiscally viable solution that would offer New Mexico’s approximately 2,100 children in foster care the opportunity to attend a high-quality school of choice regardless of changes in the child’s residence.

As Lips points out, “Adults formerly in foster care are more likely to be homeless, incarcerated, and dependent on state services. They’re also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and to have poor physical and mental health. Girls in foster care are more likely to have early pregnancies and see their own children enter the foster system.”

Lips relates these problems to the classroom, a place where “Early warning signs are often found and where foster children lag behind their peers. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that foster children exhibit ‘high rates of grade retention, lower scores on standardized tests; and higher absenteeism, tardiness, truancy and dropout rates.’ The American School Board Journal reports that ‘foster children often repeat a grade and are twice as likely as the rest of the population to drop out before graduation.’”

“Unlike their peers in traditional families, foster children often do not have an adequate safety net or social network. They are unable to rely on parents and other relatives for support during the school years and to facilitate a smooth transition out of the home and into adulthood,” Lips points out. This program will mitigate some of the most difficult problems associated with the educational experiences of New Mexico’s foster care students.

Providing School Choice to New Mexico Children in Foster Care: Fostering Stability and Achievement can be accessed online at: http://www.riograndefoundation.org.

Dan Lips is available for comment on educational choice in New Mexico and the proposal for foster care children at (240) 686-3510 or contact Paul Gessing at pgessing@riograndefoundation.org.