A Question of Priorities - A Critical Investigation of the McKinney-Vento Act

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by jayni

This critical policy ethnography examines the McKinney-Vento Act and its implementation within a Central Texas school district. Data derives from conversations with educators in key roles inside the district’s McKinney-Vento operational bureaucracy, and from the researcher’s experience as an educator and volunteer at a homeless shelter. Analysis draws on an ethic of care framework, complemented by a historiography tracing the policy’s genealogy, intent, and core values. Findings humanize impacts and recommend improved awareness, compliance, monitoring, and added resources.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

The Problem

Youth homelessness and educational risk

McKinney-Vento Act: policy definition and scope

Reauthorization through HEARTH Act

Expanded definitions of homelessness

Policy intent, process, and outputs

| | A Question of Priorities: A Critical | | --- | --- | | | Investigation of the McKinney-Vento Act | Keith Alan Cunningham, San Marcos Texas School District Abstract This critical policy ethnography analyzes the McKinney-Vento Act and how the policy is put into practice at a school district within Central Texas. Data comes from conversations with educators occupying key roles within the McKinney-Vento operational bureaucracy at the school district and the researcher’s experience as an educator and volunteer at a homeless shelter. Analysis was informed by an ethic of care framework and a historiography was created to chronicle the policy’s genealogy, intent, and guiding values. The findings are presented in a deliberate effort to put a human face to some of those the policy impacts. Major findings and recommendations include a need for increased awareness and compliance, monitoring of the policy, as well as an investment of additional resources to adequately respond to McKinney-Vento issues within the district. Keywords: McKinney-Vento, homelessness, homeless student, education policy, policy ethnography, marginalized youth The Problem The United States has experienced an epidemic of youth homelessness since the 1980s. 1 The children impacted risk a plethora of problems associated with homelessness including a lack of educational success manifesting in such detrimental forms as learning disabilities, high rates of absenteeism, or increased rates of dropping out.2 The potentially marginalizing impact of a negative educational experience on one’s future opportunities is likewise well-established in the form of increased rates of poverty and accompanying issues.3 In short, a bout of youth homelessness 1. Ronald Hallett, Educational Experiences of Hidden Homeless Teenagers: Living Doubled-up (New York: Routledge, 2012); Joseph Murphy and Kerri Tobin, Homelessness Comes to School (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2011) . 2. Henrietta S. Evans Attles, The Effects of Homelessness on the Academic Achievement of Children (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997); Jane Boyd-Zaharias and Helen Pate-Bain, “Class Matters: in and out of School,” Phi Delta Kappan 90, no 1 (2008): 40-44; Hallett, Educational Experiences; Murphy and Tobin, Homelessness Comes to School; James H. Stronge,“Educating Homeless Children and Youth: An Introduction.” In Educating Homeless Students: Promising Practices, eds. James H. Stronge and Evelyn Reed-Victor (Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education, Inc., 2000), 1-20. C.C. Tower and D.J. White, Homeless Students (Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1989). 3. Karl Ashworth, Martha Hill, and Robert Walker,“Patterns of Childhood Poverty: New Challenges for Policy,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 13 (1994): 658-680; Boyd-Zaharias and Pate-Bain, H., “Class might reverberate for a very long time. The question then turns toward how best to tackle the problem. It seems inescapable in the ubiquitously bureaucratic modern nation-state that government will play a large role in most efforts at impacting society at large. Guiding these state-led endeavors are policies through which the desired social change is supposed to occur. Working from the assumption that homelessness is detrimental to a child’s education and that modern nations deal with large problems via state bureaucracies, this study investigated the policy the United States has crafted to handle the education of homeless students. I also assumed the stated purpose and spirit of this policy –“The McKinney-Vento program is designed to address the problems that homeless children and youth have faced in…succeeding in school”—was truly intended.4 By this standard I analyzed the policy’s intent, process, and output. The McKinney-Vento Act is the federal policy that for the past two and a half decades has governed the education of homeless youth in the United States. According to McKinneyVento “the term ‘homeless child and youth’ means

FAQs

What is the focus of the study?

The study critically examines the McKinney-Vento Act and how the policy is put into practice in a Central Texas school district.

Where does the research data come from?

Data comes from conversations with educators in key McKinney-Vento administrative roles in the district, plus the researcher’s experience as an educator and volunteer at a homeless shelter.

What changes does the HEARTH Act introduce to McKinney-Vento’s approach?

HEARTH expands who qualifies as homeless for education purposes by adding criteria such as being at risk of losing housing within 14 days and recognizing “unstably housed” families with children or unaccompanied youth up to 24 years old.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by jayni