Alice Yu
July 2, 2018
Andrew Hammond
July 1st, 2020. It was heard across the room.
The U.S finally ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Took us long enough, one of the American representatives, standing stiff as a compass, sighed.
Maybe she felt proud. Or simply- like a young mother, drained, who was finally able to drag her screaming infant away from the supermarket’s infinite supply of Jet-Puff marshmallows through the dead of night- relieved of embarrassment.
Many years later since South Sudan’s ratification of the CRC did the American public finally resist the dictate of senators who barred the ratification of the CRC, who feared that international cooperation will lead to potential impingement on American sovereignty and implications on the interpretation of federalism. These representatives claim that the U.S is already a beacon of hope, the epitome of progressivism. Drunk on the illusion of American independence, the U.S dreams a life in which all standards of the CRC has been met, in which Columbia herself is the champion of human rights, freedom, and democracy for all- only to be confronted by cold, hard truths about the exceptionally horrendous ways children are treated in the U.S.
There is simply no good reason why the U.S should not ratify the CRC. Indeed, there are even several factors that highlight how necessary these provisions are for the U.S to truly achieve the gains she boasts.
One of which is how difficult it is for homeless children with disabilities to access education.
***
The plights of homeless children with disabilities seem easily discernible by name: homelessness and disability. The National Conference of State Legislature informs us that 75% of homeless or runaway youth have dropped out or will drop out of school. On the other hand, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, people with disabilities are the single largest minority group in the United States, with close to 20 percent of the population identify as having an intellectual, psychosocial, physical, sensory, developmental or medical disability. These staggering numbers, combined with the need for special care, endangers the well-being of homeless children with disabilities. Having to complete their education while facing the trauma of being alone and abandoned at an early age is hard enough, let alone suffering from disabilities and struggling to access target-specific special education in addition to that. Experiencing constant barrage of stressful and traumatic experiences from being homeless, they also confront high rates of chronic health problems that lead to profound effects on their development and ability to learn. However, this minority group, despite its hardships, is often overlooked and marginalized due to its small numbers. A few rights that are often jeopardized by being part of this group are the right to proper treatment, the right to education, the right to leisure, the right to participation, the right to life, the right to a standard of living, the right to development, and much more. Essentially, U.S. domestic policy must adapt to specific needs of specific targets instead of pursuing a one-size-fits-all solution to guarantee the access to effective education for all. To approach this complex question, it is important to first recognize the complexity of these issues and then cross them over to examine the intricate nuances implied by overlapping different identities of people.
Angeleatha McAdoo, the homeless-education advocate for the Christina district in Wilmington, DE., estimates that 32 percent of the district's approximately 500 homeless students have disabilities. Even though these numbers do not reflect the homeless and disability rate of the nation, it certainly indicates how dire the circumstances are in certain districts. To protect these students, 2 major bills have been passed: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, both designed to ensure that schools are proactively identifying and assisting children in need. The IDEA
guarantees services to children with special needs at no cost;
requires schools to evaluate children who may have a disability and if found eligible, develop an Individualized Education Program (IEP) with special services to meet each child’s needs;
requires schools to provide special education and related services, such as transportation, speech therapy, mental health counseling, psychological services, physical therapy, health services, parent counseling and training, and social work services;
and requires that a school where a child transfers to continues a special education evaluation that was begun at another school within a specific time frame or provides services immediately for a child with an IEP.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, on the other hand,
guarantees access to education and educational support for any child or youth who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence;
gives homeless children and youth the right to enroll in school immediately, even if they do not have documents that are usually required for an enrollment;
allows them to attend classes and participate in all school activities, even if they do not have school supplies or uniforms;
and allows them to continue in their school when the family moves to a new location, to the extent feasible, if this is in their best interest, and to receive transportation to their school.
Both of these acts combined are meant to reduce the number of students who are forced to drop out of high school due to homelessness or a disability. Many difficulties still arise, however. For example, even if the student is actively enrolled in an education system, homeless students are highly mobile, making counselors and social workers hard to track the student's status and progress. Additionally, the scarcity of resources available to implement these acts similarly impedes their effectiveness, especially when demand for service inflates. Sometimes, as the number of homeless children grew in public schools, the states failed to provide subgrants to 41% of students identified as homeless. This number is not so surprising: often times, they must work with a budget that fell almost two-thirds short on the required minimum. Furthermore, even if the state does meet the budget requirements, many homeless families are unaware of these aid programs, therefore cannot receive the benefits that they are entitled to.
To counter these issues, a few modifications to the existing bills should be made.
Federal law should require each school to have one liaison to provide services to students who are homeless. This liaison can be a social worker or a community support specialist, appointed by either the state or school. By guaranteeing one point of support for every school, the schools could better identify and keep track of a student’s homeless status and utilize, with expertise on the general neighbourhood, local resources to help students succeed in school- that can mean finding transportation, getting food stamps, purchasing clothes, and qualifying for health insurance. By focusing on a specific school instead of an entire school district, these liaisons may have a better hold on the school’s demographics and will be able to provide targeted assistance for those with special needs. They can also train educators and faculty members to identify early warning signs of homelessness and disabilities, counsel students who are homeless, and direct students to other services offered by the school, such as professional counseling and tutoring. Ultimately, as students spend a significant portion of their time at school, schools can help identify homeless students, provide a safe and consistent place to study, and connect them to caring adults and community resources with expertise from these liaisons.
Additionally, there should be more research done on homeless children with disabilities, as there is a severe deficit in data on those who are homeless and disabled. To collect this data, we should disaggregate statewide assessment data by disability and homeless, require data on the number of students who have disabilities and track the number of referral and placement process and services provided. This data is essential to determining the effectiveness of the homelessness-specific special education program. To be eligible to receive the benefits of the special education program, the recipient must undergo a process of evaluation. However, given the fact that the effects of homelessness on children in the classroom often mimics indicators of a disability, evaluators have a difficult time differentiating between the two, or even determining whether or not both factors are in play at the same time. They are mandated to rule out economic or environmental factors as the cause of a child’s struggles, yet they are confronted with behavior that looks very much like what one might see in a child with a disability: emotional-behavior problems, aggression, inattentiveness, skill deficiencies and slowed or poor achievement. We should develop a procedure to respond to students who are living in temporary homeless shelters and in need of special education evaluation in a timely manner in order for the evaluation to be expedited. Along with a speedy evaluation, we should also ensure that transfer of school records, including special education records, is complete and done efficiently. To this end, the state should also sponsor workshops or other outreach activities to provide information to children and parents who are homeless and eligible for special education. These workshops may also be hosted by school liaisons as mentioned above. At last, we recommend the state to offer a scholarship designed specifically for homeless students with disabilities to receive tutoring and test prep services. This grant may also be used to register students for standardized testing (SAT, ACT, APs) or pay their application processing fee when embarking upon the journey to higher education.
***
Ultimately, to address the deficiency in support for homeless students with disabilities in the U.S, we recommend: liaisons assigned to every school, more research done, expedited evaluation process and outreach programs, and special scholarship for standardized testing and tutoring.
We sincerely wish the U.S. best of luck in her new capacity.
Citations:
Criscione, W. (2018, June 29). Beating the odds: How Spokane Public Schools is getting homeless kids to graduate high school. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.inlander.com/spokane/how-spokane-public-schools-is-getting-homeless-kids-to-graduate-high-school/Content?oid=9504991
Firesteel. (2014, September 17). More Barriers to Learning: Homelessness and the Special Education System | Part Four in our series on Homelessness and Poverty in the Public Education System. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from http://firesteelwa.org/2014/09/more-barriers-to-learning-homelessness-and-the-special-education-system/
Firesteel. (2014, September 17). McKinney-Vento, IDEA and You: Strategies for Helping Homeless Children With Disabilities. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from http://firesteelwa.org/2014/09/strategies-for-helping-homeless-children-with-disabilities/
Goldrick-rab, S. (2018, January 14). It's Hard to Study if You're Hungry. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/opinion/hunger-college-food-insecurity.html
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://nche.ed.gov/legis/idea.php
Issue: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2, 2018, from http://archives-republicans-edlabor.house.gov/archive/issues/107th/education/idea/idea.htm
Kennedy, T. (2017, December 26). Where we've failed Americans with disabilities. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/26/opinions/disabilities-employment-opportunity-opinion-kennedy/index.html
Samuels, C. A. (2018, June 20). Getting Help Fast for Disabled, Homeless Students Isn't Easy. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/03/07/getting-help-fast-for-disabled-homeless-students.html
Taormina-Weiss, W. (2012, March 06). Homeless Children with Disabilities in America. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/children/homeless-kids.php
Wrenick, K. (2018, June 20). How One District Cut Student Homelessness by 25 Percent. Retrieved July 2, 2018, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/01/10/how-one-district-cut-student-homelessness-by.html