Hailly Korman and I have a column in The 74 today about disconnected youth:
Each year, an estimated 5 million students experience chronic and catastrophic disruptions to their education. These include incarceration, homelessness, pregnancy, relocation of military families, migrant and refugee experiences, and foster care, and often no one is meaningfully accountable for their education success while they are going through it. The circumstances and stories vary, but the root causes of educational challenges for all these students are consistent: They are regularly faced with interrupted learning, barriers to enrollment, and disconnected services and care.
While some young people truly fall through the cracks and are served by no one, there is a much larger group of kids who seem to be served by everyone. They have multiple agencies and nonprofits acting on their behalf simultaneously, but generally without coordination. In fact, these agencies are often not even communicating with one another. For most of these students, no one is responsible for seeing them successfully through high school graduation — so, in addition to everything else they are managing, they carry the burden of being the sole navigators of their education pathways…
