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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Experts: Half of Foster Kids Quit High School | EQUAL VOICE

Experts: Half of Foster Kids Quit High School | EQUAL VOICE:

Experts: Half of Foster Kids Quit High School

Filed under: Education,Midwest,Spotlight,West |
Kelli Kennedy | Associated Press

SACRAMENTO – When Carey Sommer entered foster care in California, he left his mom, his high school and his friends. Bounced from home to home, he changed high schools nine times until the disheartened teen finally dropped out.

“I just started to not really care about high school because I figured I’m just going to move anyway — why does it matter?” said Sommer, who was told it would take an extra year and a half to graduate to make up for credits he lost changing schools.

Sommer, 19, is among the roughly 50 percent of the nation’s 500,000 foster kids who won’t graduate from high school, experts say.

Nearly 94 percent of those that do make it through high school do not finish college, according to a