LA Charter Schools Struggle To Serve Certain Students: UCLA Study

LOS ANGELES, CA — Charter schools In Los Angeles County are less successful at serving homeless students than public schools, which are more frequently held to account for their homeless students, a UCLA study concluded.

The research released by Black Male Institute at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies examined the performance of homeless students at charter and public schools in Los Angeles County. Researchers found that though charter schools had a lower percentage of homeless students to serve, their homeless students had higher rates of chronic absence and lower graduation rates. The study also found significant racial disparities exist in student homelessness, with Black students overrepresented in the student homelessness population by 80%.

“It is important to note that Black students have the highest absentee rate and the lowest graduation rate of any other racial group of students in charter schools,” said Elianny Edwards, a researcher at the Black Male Institute.

Researchers also called into question the ability of some charter schools to identify their homeless students and provide them with the proper staffing to meet their needs.

"The success of public schools is often measured in part by graduation and attendance rates, even among those students experiencing the very real challenges of homelessness," said UCLA education professor Tyrone Howard, director of the Black Male Institute and the Pritzker Family Endowed Chair in Education to Strengthen Families.

"The same measures should be applied to the evaluation of charter schools," he said. "They need to do more and better in serving students experiencing homelessness."

According to researchers:

• In L.A. County charter schools, the five-year cohort graduation rates for charter school students experiencing homelessness is 45%, approximately 35 percentage points lower than the graduation rate for students experiencing homelessness in non-charter public schools.
• 40% of high school students experiencing homelessness in L.A. county charter schools were chronically absent and missed 18 or more instructional days in the 2018-19 school year. By comparison, the rate of chronic absenteeism for homeless students attending non-charter high schools was 30%. Moreover, one out of every two Black high school students experiencing homelessness were chronically absent. The disparities among Black students are similar in both charter and non-charter schools.
• The homeless liaison is the most important role in supporting students experiencing homelessness as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Yet in L.A. County charter schools, this role is often designated to network leadership and school administrators.
• Homelessness experts assert that typically 10% of economically disadvantaged student experience homelessness. Employing a 10% benchmark in L.A. county charter schools suggests that in 2018-2019 potentially 6,463 students experiencing homelessness may have not been identified or served.

To address the problem, researchers recommend that charter schools implement student audits twice a year and designate an independent homeless liaison.

“The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act mandates that homeless liaisons have the capacity to perform a wide variety of responsibilities. However, a third of the schools we analyzed designated this position to their school leader—an already busy and demanding position,” concludes Earl Edwards, a researcher at the Black Male Institute. “If the homelessness liaison cannot fulfill their responsibilities, students experiencing homelessness are likely to be unidentified and underserved.”