Kelly issues executive order on Kansas’ vulnerable children after vetoing related bill
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Tuesday ordered the state to prepare an annual report card detailing the academic progress and classroom struggles of children in its care.
The action, an executive order that becomes effective immediately, places Kansas among a handful of states that require such accountability for foster children. It comes a month after Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that included nearly identical language, saying other proposals in the measure were too costly.
“This executive order is another step my administration is taking to improve outcomes for vulnerable children in the foster care system,” Kelly said in a statement accompanying her order. “Education is key to a strong future workforce in Kansas. This report will help us track educational outcomes of Kansas students in foster care — which will in turn help Kansas’ vulnerable families, and make our public education system more accountable.”
Many lawmakers and child advocates were surprised and disappointed with Kelly’s veto June 1. And they hoped then that she would use her authority as governor to do something.
Kelly’s order will require the state Department of Education to work with the Department for Children and Families to prepare the report and submit it by January 15 of each year to the education committees in both legislative chambers.
The report card will contain graduation rates of Kansas foster kids, suspension rates and standardized test scores. Each category also will include race and ethnicity data.
Education is one of the key hurdles facing children in foster care, who graduate at a rate that is just a fraction of their peers. For fiscal year 2019, about 39 percent of Kansas kids in foster care graduated from high school — which was one of the lowest rates in the country. The current rate in Kansas is even lower, about 35 percent. Last year, the graduation rate for students overall was roughly 87 percent.
Laura Howard, secretary for DCF, applauded Kelly and her order and said her agency is already working with the Department of Education to begin gathering data.
“I have long supported the idea of a foster care report card,” Howard said, “because I believe that a child’s success in education is a predictor for their success in life. ... I look forward to seeing where the data leads us so we can identify ways in which both agencies can support foster youth in meaningful ways that ensure their well being.”
Kelly’s order says that “as their legal custodian, the State of Kansas bears a heightened responsibility to make every effort to ensure Kansas students in foster care receive a quality education.”
For several years, the state system has been under intense scrutiny after revelations that Kansas foster kids were too often sleeping overnight in offices when no other beds were available, were missing after having run away and were being shuffled from home to home. Because of that, they’ve fallen far behind their peers in school.
Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg, has been the biggest proponent for the report card and pushed the legislation that would provider better opportunities for kids in care. Though she said Tuesday she was happy to see the executive order creating the annual report, she questioned the timing.
Republican leaders recently formed an interim foster care oversight committee to address issues in the troubled system, including the tracking of educational outcomes for foster kids, Baumgardner said. The committee is scheduled to begin meeting in the fall.
“The fact of the matter is, our governor is playing politics with our most vulnerable Kansans, our foster care children,” said Baumgardner, who is vice chair of the interim committee. “If her plan all along was to veto the bill, she’s had ample time for this executive order. In fact it could have been in December, in February. Any month.”
The measure Kelly vetoed was part of a package of educational proposals bundled into one bill in the waning hours of the 2020 legislative session. The bill passed the House on a 110-3 vote, and the Senate approved it 36-3.
When she vetoed the measure, Kelly said the state couldn’t afford the cost associated with a portion of the legislation that established the Kansas Promise Scholarship Act. The program would have provided scholarships to attend a two-year associate program or technical college for students who are in grade 12, have graduated from high school within the past 12 months or have been in foster care in any of grades 6 through 12.
In early June, the Senate Education Committee tried to resurrect the proposal during a special session called by Kelly to address her veto of a bill designed to greatly limit her authority to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. The committee introduced a foster care bill similar to the one Kelly rejected, but instead of funding the program in Fiscal Year 2021, the proposal would have delayed the funding until FY 2022 in an attempt to address Kelly’s concerns about the cost.
The education committee recommended the new bill for passage, but Senate leaders did not take it up for debate on the Senate floor, and the bill died.
Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, said the report card measure was long overdue.
“I’m very glad it’s happening,” he said. “But this is not the last step. It’s just a step in the process of improving the foster care system in Kansas.”
Ward said the abysmal graduation rate of Kansas foster youth shows why the report card is so important.
“It’s not just to show where we’re failing, but to point out how we make it better,” he said. “And next year is going to be a challenge for any child’s education, but particularly for foster kids.”
Ward said, however, that legislation would be better than an executive order, which could be reversed by future governors.
“I understand what the governor had to do with the bill, but this is just a temporary step,” he said. “We should come back next year and put it in the law books.”
The report card proposal was modeled after an Indiana law that was highlighted in The Star’s December series on the dismal long-term outcomes for many foster children nationwide.
In its year-long investigation, Throwaway Kids, The Star included a survey of prison inmates nationwide that found of the nearly 6,000 who responded in 12 states, 1 in 4 said they had been in foster care. Of that group, 16 percent said they received a high school diploma, and an additional 29 percent earned a GED.
Across the nation, the graduation rates for foster children are significantly lower than for all other “special population groups,” including homeless students and those with disabilities.
In her statement announcing the executive order, Kelly said when she took office, her administration “inherited a foster care system in crisis.”
“Years of severe funding cuts to pay for failed tax policy — combined with mismanagement — left the state safety net in shreds and the number of Kansas children in foster care at record highs,” she said.
Kelly said her administration took swift action, appointing a new Secretary to rebuild DFS, providing funding for dozens of new caseworkers and making Kansas among the the first states in the country to fully implement the Family First Prevention Services Act, which drew millions in federal dollars to help keep troubled families together.
DCF also began connecting families with parenting programs and formed partnerships with local law enforcement agencies to provide a better response to families in crisis, Kelly said.
Kelly said she would continue to preserve the foster care programs already in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We will grow these foundational services and continue to fight on behalf of all Kansas children,” she said.
Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice worked with Baumgardner on the report card part of the vetoed legislation. Tuesday’s executive order is crucial in order for the state to improve, said Quinn Ried, policy research analyst for Kansas Appleseed.
“If we’re going to step up as a state and address the problems we face, we need to have the information necessary to make informed decisions,” said Ried, who applauded Baumgardner’s leadership on the issue and Kelly’s willingness to issue the order. “Government might be messy sometimes, but I think this is a good example of two strong leaders coming together to do right by Kansas kids. It’s a good day.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2020 at 9:32 AM with the headline "Kelly issues executive order on Kansas’ vulnerable children after vetoing related bill."
