Homeless and Test-Less: The Hidden Educational Inequality of Housing Instability

• In Event: Testing in Education: Validity, Access, Equity, and Choice

Abstract

Of all the ways young people experiencing homelessness become invisible, perhaps the most surprising is when they end up missing and removed from the very research meant to illuminate their struggles. Quite commonly, that happens because housing instability leads to more days of missed school, and a higher chance of missing the state tests commonly used to measure achievement and inequality. Drawing on one California county’s state test scores and yearly GPAs (the latter of which is not missing for any students), we suggest the magnitude of inequality between the most vulnerable housing-unstable adolescents and their advantaged peers would be much larger, had more shown up on test days.

Author

• Jaymes Pyne, Stanford University