The New York City Department of Education (DOE) must increase its efforts to ensure that the legal rights of homeless students are protected. This was the conclusion of a new report, Up Against the Odds, released September 13 by Advocates for Children of New York (AFC).

The report underscores the importance of providing education to young homeless children, and the need for increased coordination between city agencies and the DOE in order to extend services to these students.

Elisa Hyman, AFC executive director, said that the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which protects the right to an education of homeless students, was passed in 1987, “and the city still has trouble fulfilling it. We'd like to see more action in favor of homeless students, most of whom are concentrated in the Bronx and Brooklyn,” said Hyman.

The AFC study revealed that even though the DOE “underestimated the number of homeless youth in the city, it has no access to funds that could be made available to fulfill the needs of their education.”

Jennifer Pringle, director of AFC's Center for New York State Technical Education Attendance for Homeless Students, said that the DOE had identified at least 16,000 homeless youth in the city, “but there are others who have not been identified who would qualify for the protections guaranteed under the law.”

The majority of students identified as homeless by DOE have low academic performances due to various factors, such as the frequent change of living arrangements and excessive transfers from school to school.