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It was the fall of 1990. I sat in the lobby of the financial aid office of my state university, trying to look more confident than I felt.  I was sixteen years old.  Within a year I would file for legal emancipation and be awarded independent status.  For now, I lived in the attic of my temporary legal guardian, a 60-year old woman.

“I should be grateful,” I reminded myself, “She was kind enough to drive me to the college admissions office.”  It had taken some coaxing on my part. She thought I should attend the local high school for my senior year. I wanted to go to college right away.

Why should I waste another year in high school?  It would be my sixth high school placement. I had previously attended five different schools, in three different towns. Each time I had changed schools, it had been mid-semester. The schools used different textbooks. Sometimes they didn’t offer the exact same elective that I had been taking at my previous school; rather than Speech Class, the next school offered Drama Class. Public speaking and drama were similar, but they weren’t exactly the same.

There some benefits to growing up in foster care. At one institution I stayed in when I was 12 years old, they had school year-round. From that time on, I was always a year ahead in English class.

Yet one more reason not to attend my senior year of high school: I had already taken Senior English class when I was a junior. I was teased a bit by the seniors at the beginning of the year, but they soon grew accustomed to me.

That was the hardest part about changing schools. I had to prove myself every time. Back in the late-80’s, it was hard to find foster homes for teenagers, so we were often housed in group homes. There was a powerful stigma attached to being known as a ‘group home girl.’ The general consensus was that you were a troublemaker, academic underachiever and promiscuous.  Disproving those assumptions took time and energy – and it had to be repeated each time I changed schools.

“Lisa, you can come into the office now.” The admissions counselor stood in the doorway.

I followed him in, nervously.

“I’ve been spending some time looking over your transcripts, and some positive letters that I have received from your teachers. You were in the Speech Team, Drama Club, Chorus, and Junior Miss. Very impressive.” He smiled. “What’s this about art competitions?”

I cleared my throat, “Some of my pastels were chosen for a competition at a local community college.”

“I notice that you already have your Senior English credit as well. The one thing that is holding you back is -”

I stopped him before he could finish, “Math.  Algebra, to be exact.”

Algebra had been my hardest challenge. You couldn’t just jump at algebra from all angles.  You had to learn it bit by bit, one theory based upon the principals of another. But I had changed schools three times in one year when I was taking algebra.  By my third school (and third textbook), I had fallen hopelessly behind.

When I asked my Algebra teacher to help, he quizzed me on what I knew and then decided that I was so far behind that it was ‘no use’ trying to teach me.

After I shared my story with the admissions counselor, he smiled his reassuring smile, “I don’t think that we should let that one credit hold you back. I will bypass it, so that you can start college this fall.”

I was one of the lucky ones. Years later, when I tracked down the whereabouts of some of the other foster children I had grown up with, they weren’t faring so well. Most did not attend college. Some didn’t even finish high school.

If only there could have been a way for us to get more academic support.

Educational Support for Foster Children

Arizona recently made history by enacting the first school choice scholarship program for foster children. “Displaced Child Vouchers” for up to $5000 will be awarded for foster children to attend the school of their choice.

Public school advocates oppose these vouchers. School choice advocates call them a victory. Speaking as a former foster child, my primary concern is that current youth in care receive the educational support that they need.

Vouchers can be used for either private or public schools. My hope is that the youth themselves will be able to decide what school they wish to attend. There seems to be a current trend toward keeping foster youth in the neighborhood ‘where they came from.’

What if that neighborhood is disadvantaged, and the foster child desperately needs advantages? Not all public schools are equal. Not all provide college preparatory classes on their curriculum.

Should a foster child attend the public school in their neighborhood if that school is in academic emergency? Foster children have enough emergencies of their own to cope with…

Sometimes I suspect that sending foster children to school in the area from which they originated might just be a way for suburban neighborhoods to crowd out the undesirable.

I recently spoke with a foster mother who was willing to spend thousands of dollars of her own money in order to send her oldest foster daughter to a local charter school. She was not a wealthy woman by any means, so this represented a financial sacrifice. I asked why this was so important to her.

She answered, “When one of my teenagers skip school, it takes public schools a long time to catch on. But in charter schools, they have a smaller class size, so they notify me right away. Also, my oldest (foster) son failed 9th grade in public schools, but they went ahead and moved him right up to the 10th grade. This happened every year, right up until his senior year. He never got the chance to catch up. When he failed his senior year, I asked him, ‘What are they going to do with you now?'”

According to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, foster children are more likely to earn their GED than their high school diploma. Sometimes I experience ‘survival guilt’ at having made it through college and graduate school, when so many other foster youth have been unable to do so.

What Could Vouchers Have Done for Me?

As I look back on my experience in foster care, educational vouchers would have benefited me if they had made it possible for me to attend one high school, rather than five.

I don’t know that I would have chosen a private school, rather than a public one.

I do know that I never received college preparatory counseling at any of the high schools I attended. I also know that having one teacher and one textbook, and perhaps also some individualized tutoring, would have helped me to master algebra.

There was no individualized educational attention given, at home or at school, to any of the teenagers from the group homes where I resided. No special tutoring was made available to foster youth who were failing their classes.

The one thing that group home staff did that I will forever appreciate is that they allowed me to participate in extracurricular activities. Many barriers exist, such as liability, funding and transportation. Yet, staff members fought for my right to maintain school involvement.

Participating in extracurricular activities taught me that, although I might be displaced and unwanted, I had talents and abilities. They also impressed my college admissions counselor.

With that in mind, I studied a directory of Arizona private schools. What I saw were small class sizes, outlets for creativity, an emphasis on college preparation – and hefty tuitions. If the scholarships max out at $5,000, public school advocates shouldn’t feel so threatened.

Lisa Dickson grew up in the foster care system.  She is now a wife, stepmother, and advocate for foster children.  She blogs at Sunshine Girl on a Rainy Day.