Most foster youth have high educational aspirations. However, many are experiencing significant academic failure and will almost certainly fall far short of meeting their educational goals. They fall behind early and may never catch up. This study suggests that while some of the poor educational performance stems from maltreatment experiences prior to entry into care, for many, school mobility arising from changes in their out-of-home placement contributed to their academic failure. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1996 (ASFA) marked a major new departure in child welfare policy. It not only shifted the focus of child welfare policy from family preservation to child safety, permanency, and well-being, but it inaugurated a new era of performance monitoring for state child welfare systems. Despite increased efforts to reduce the amount of time children spend in out-of-home placement, many of those who are in care spend considerable periods of time under the supervision of the child welfare system. Growing recognition that the child welfare system is the long-term parent for many abused and neglected children has helped focus attention on educational status as a critical aspect of the broader well-being of these children. This issue brief, based on two Chapin Hall studies

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