The state took children from their parents — then failed to give them a ‘real’ education
Foster youth in Michigan say the classes they took in state-funded facilities didn’t count toward graduation. Some dropped out. “I felt destroyed,” one said, “like everything I did was for nothing.”
July 11, 2022, 8:00 AM EDT
By Erin Einhorn
DETROIT — Michigan is catastrophically failing to provide many of the most vulnerable children in its care with a quality education, delaying some teenagers’ graduation by years or leaving them so frustrated that they drop out of school, according to foster youth, their advocates and educators who’ve tried to help them.
NBC News spoke with 10 current or former Michigan foster youth who collectively spent time in more than a dozen residential facilities in recent years, either because social workers couldn’t find a family to take them or because the state said they needed treatment for mental health or substance misuse issues.
All of them attended classes for months or years with other young residents of those facilities.