BILL NUMBER: S349

SPONSOR: FELDER
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the education law, in relation to
improving educational outcomes for homeless school age children

 
PURPOSE:

To require the data on educational outcomes of homeless students avail-
able to the governor and the legislature.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 Subdivision 7 of section 3209 of the education law is renum-
bered subdivision 9 and new subdivisions 7 and 8 are added as follows:

7. a. The Commissioner shall submit to the governor and the legislature
a report including, but not limited to:

(a) the number of identified homeless students enrolled in public
schools;
              

(b) the academic performance and educational outcomes of homeless
students, including but not limited to:

(i) student scoring on the statewide administered academic assessments

(ii) English language proficiency

(iii) dropout rates

(iv) four-year adjusted graduation rate

b. The data must include state and district-level information and must
be disaggregated by race, low income, gender, etc.

8. The Commissioner, in collaboration with experts from community organ-
izations on homelessness and homeless education policy, shall develop a
homeless education policy.

Section 2: The enactment of this clause.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

According to the New York Times article on February 21, 2014, the State
Education Department reported that more than 80,000 school-age children
in New York City were identified as homeless during the last academic
year. While the homeless student population has grown since the finan-
cial crisis in 2008, homeless students often have difficulty accessing
education and staying in school. A study found that only one-third of
homeless students read at a grade level compared to more than half of
their same-aged peers (Rescorla et al., 1991), Nationally, one-fifth of
homeless children repeat a grade in school, and sixteen percent are
enrolled in special education classes (Institute for Children and Pover-
ty, 2001).

While identifying homeless students is important, their educational
outcomes have to be evaluated in order to increase
understandingi4bo4their educational barriers. This legislation would
allow data collection on the academic performance and educational
outcomes of homeless students, including but not limited to: test scores
on the statewide administered academic assessments; dropout rates; four-
year graduation rate; five-year graduation rate; suspension and expul-
sion data. The data must include state and district-level information
and must be disaggregated by ethnicity, income level, gender, special
education, etc. This legislation would also require the Commissioner of
the State Education Department to develop homeless education policy in
collaboration with experts from non-for-profit organization on how to
better provide support services to homeless students and on how to
utilize Title I funding to achieve desirable outcomes.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2017-18: S2106A

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.