Janet R. Beales

I. INTRODUCTION

II. DESCRIPTION OF PRIVATE PROGRAMS

III. ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

I. PROGRAM ANALYSIS

II. POLICY ISSUES

III. SYNTHESIS

IV. CONCLUSION

V. RECOMMENDATIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDIX I: Financial Incentives

APPENDIX II: States with Legislation Allowing Public Schools to Contract for Alternative Education for At-Risk Students

APPENDIX III: Defining Characteristics of Educational Placements

APPENDIX IV: Service Providers and Key Contacts

Forgotten children. Troubled youth. Students with special needs. Whatever the euphemism, these are children who are not well served in conventional education settings. These are students who challenge the capabilities of schools and parents alike. Often they are difficult and costly to educate. Beyond academics, education can involve teaching behavior modification, independent living skills, or skills to help the student contend with a particular disability.

The private sector, including private schools, nonpublic schools, and homeschools, offers a wide variety of education programs for this population of students. Private-sector schools and programs exist to serve students with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities. Other private-sector schools specialize in meeting the needs of at-risk students—teen parents, substance abusers, homeless youth, dropouts, or academically undirected youth. Still others provide education and treatment services to adjudicated juveniles serving time for delinquent or criminal behavior (see Figure 1).

Conventional public schools enroll the vast majority of difficult-to-educate students. Contrary to a widely held perception, however, public schools do not accept everyone. Those students whom the public schools cannot or will not enroll are often sent, at public expense, to private schools with expertise in educating a certain type of student. Public schools cannot be expected to teach every child and teach all of them well. Where public schools lack specialization, they have relied on private providers for help.

Notes: These figures underestimate actual numbers of schools and students because of the lack of comprehensive data about private-sector providers.

a The Directory for Exceptional Children: A Listing of Educational and Training Facilities, 13th Edition, 1994-95, Porter Sargent Publishers, Inc., Boston, MA 02108, p.7. The Directory lists 3,189 facilities including Catholic schools, tuition-based schools, and a small number of state schools. Because listings in the Directory are voluntary, some providers may have been omitted.

b Directory of Catholic Special Educational Programs and Facilities 1989, National Catholic Educational Association, Washington, D.C. 1989, p. 7-67. Note: Some of these schools are included in the 3,000 count from The Directory for Exceptional Children.

c Interview with Tom Bushnell, president and director, National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network (NATHAN), March 6, 1996. According to Bushnell, 4,100 families belong to NATHAN, a network of families who are homeschooling children with disabilities. Based on the incidence of reported disabilities in the public-school population (approximately ten percent of students) among the estimated 300,000 homeschooled students, Bushnell estimates that a total of 30,000 children with disabilities attend homeschools in the U.S.

d Sixteenth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. A-57 and A-59. Due to state reporting errors and omissions, this figure underreports the number of students attending nonpublic or private schools.

e Directory of Catholic Special Educational Programs and Facilities 1989, p. 7-67. Count is total of school-reported enrollments and includes students in some schools serving juvenile offenders or at-risk populations.

f Excludes juveniles held in police lockups, adult jails and prisons, and psychiatric and drug treatment programs. Conditions of Confinement:: Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, August 1994, p. ES1-2.

g Conditions of Confinement, p. 1.

h Estimate derived from number of juveniles housed in private ranches divided by the median population size of ranches (40 juveniles). [3,551/40=89]. Conditions of Confinement, p. 24-25.

I Estimate derived from number of juveniles housed in private-reception centers divided by the median population size of training schools (86 juveniles). [6,275/86=73]. Conditions of Confinement, p. 24-25.

j Estimate derived from number of juveniles housed in private-reception centers divided by the median population size of reception centers (23 juveniles). [340/23=15]. Conditions of Confinement, p. 24-25.

k Estimate derived from number of juveniles housed in private training schools divided by the median population size of detention centers (22 juveniles). [590/22=27]. Conditions of Confinement, p. 24-25.

l Estimate derived by applying percentage of privately operated shelters, halfway houses, and group homes to the relevant juvenile population. [84% x 29,214 juveniles = 24,539]. Conditions of Confinement, p. 24-25.

m Conditions of Confinement, p. 25.

n Ibid.

o Ibid.

p Ibid.

Private schools may operate under contract with government agencies and receive public funding. (For purposes of this study, such schools are referred to as nonpublic schools. Nonpublic schools may be either for-profit or non-profit organizations and can also enroll students on a private-tuition basis.) Many private schools for difficult-to-educate youth, however, including schools with a religious orientation and homeschools, are supported primarily by private funding (see Table 1). A growing number of charter schools--autonomous public schools--specialize in serving at-risk students. Some charter schools for at-risk students are operated by private companies.

The private sector has proven an important and viable provider of education for difficult-to-educate students. In serving this diverse student population, the private sector has spawned a wide variety of schooling options to meet the needs of individual learners.

This study describes the role of private institutions in educating difficult-to-educate students. Part II of the study analyzes the various arrangements in the context of public policy. It discusses the extent to which each arrangement incorporates performance measures, financial accountability, and student access to services. Implications for school-choice policy will also be addressed.

As the educational needs of the student population have grown more diverse, educators have responded by creating specialized programs to serve students. For purposes of this study, we examine private-sector educational programs for three student groups. Because students may fall under more than one category, considerable overlap exists among the programs serving difficult-to-educate students. For example, many programs serving adjudicated youth also provide special education because a large portion of juvenile offenders have been identified with learning and emotional disabilities (see Figure 1). The three groups examined in this study are:

1. Background

Roughly 5.37 million children with disabilities under the age of 22 receive special-education services in the United States. The U.S. Department of Education no longer collects information about the total cost of special education, but the Center for Special Education Finance estimates that in 1993-94, public expenditures for special education exceeded $32 billion. In 1987-88, the most recent year in which comprehensive data was collected by the Education Department, public spending on special education totaled $19 billion from federal, state, and local sources.

By far the most common disabilities are learning disabilities (see Table 2). The proportion of students categorized as learning-disabled more than doubled between 1976 and 1994, from 23.8 percent to 51.1 percent of all disabled students. Special education policies and their funding mechanisms vary from state to state. As a result, the percentage of all school-aged children identified as having a disability ranges from a low of 7 percent in Hawaii to a high of 15 percent in Massachusetts.

Source: Sixteenth Annual Report to Congress

When Congress passed the landmark Education of All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) in 1975, it set in motion a legislative mandate that would fundamentally alter the way students with disabilities are served in the public schools. The act, later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), provides federal funds to states for the purpose of educating students with disabilities. In order to receive such funds, IDEA requires that states adopt specified policies and procedures for special education. IDEA mandates that every child with a disability be provided with a free appropriate public education—regardless of cost. Because the term "free appropriate public education" (or FAPE) has never been well defined, parents and educators often disagree over how a child is to be educated, which can lead to intense litigation.

The cost of a special education, in the public or private sector, is considerably higher than regular education. A Reason Foundation study of the Los Angeles Unified School District found that the average per-pupil cost of special education is two-and-a-half times greater than the cost of general education. In extreme cases, the public's cost of educating a single student, including such support services as residential care and out-of-state transportation, can approach $80,000 annually.

IDEA requires that schools provide a continuum of placement options, including various placement settings within the public schools, and placement in nonpublic schools. Because of the law's emphasis on placing children in the least-restrictive environment, public-school officials first attempt to place a child in the public schools, even when the student may spend little or no time in the regular classroom. (Note: the least-restrictive environment policy assumes that students with disabilities are best served in placements which integrate them with their nondisabled peers, which is not necessarily true for every student.) Only after failing to place or serve the student in the public schools will public officials consider placement in a nonpublic school.

2. Nonpublic Schools

When public schools or agencies cannot serve a particular student, they may contract with a nonpublic school to educate that student. Nonpublic schools are privately operated nonsectarian schools registered or licensed with the state to provide special education and related services under contract with government agencies. Tuition at nonpublic schools is at public, not parent, expense. The U.S. Department of Education (using state-reported data) reports that just over two percent of the nation's special-education population, or 100,700 students, attend private-sector schools, which can include residential care. Of that number, 43,795 students are placed in private schools at private expense. (Another 3 percent, or 159,000 students with disabilities, attend school in separate public facilities. These figures significantly underestimate private and nonpublic school enrollment because of state reporting omissions.)

The 1994-95 Directory For Exceptional Children, lists roughly 3,000 private and nonpublic special-education schools and facilities. Nonpublic schools tend to be narrowly focused, developing expertise at serving children with specific disabilities. Nonpublic-school costs vary widely, depending in large part on the nature of the disability category served. The cost of educating a student in a nonpublic school may also include the cost of residential and medical care, and transportation.

For example, the nonpublic Highland Hospital and Homewood School in Asheville, North Carolina, provides residential, hospital, and educational care to socially maladjusted children requiring intensive psychiatric care. In 1994-95, Highland Hospital and Homewood School served 27 boys and girls ages 12-18 at a per-pupil cost of $689 a day, or $250,000 on an annualized basis. (Because the students' length of stay varies in this type of setting, rates are often expressed as a daily, rather than annual or monthly, fee.) By contrast, the Atlantis Academy, a nonpublic day school in Miami, Florida, serves students with moderate learning disabilities at a per-pupil cost of $7,800 a year.

Nonpublic schools specialize in just about every kind of disability. Because public schools often cannot accommodate children with severe disabilities, nonpublic schools tend to enroll some of the most demanding students. For example, students with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED) account for 40 percent of the students enrolled in nonpublic schools. About half of the children suffering from a traumatic brain injury are placed in private settings (see Table 3).

Children with severe disabilities also tend to involve higher costs of education and care. Lower student-teacher ratios, greater use of support services such as physical and occupational therapy, counseling, and medical services, and the use of specialized equipment and facilities all make special education more expensive relative to regular education.

Nonpublic schools, by virtue of enrolling higher-needs students, often have the appearance of being a higher-cost provider relative to public schools, when in fact they may be competitive or even lower cost than the public schools for a given type of student. The full costs of nonpublic schools are easily identified, whereas the costs of public services are often incompletely reported due to cross-subsidizing, excluded costs, and other reporting errors. Few studies exist comparing the total costs of nonpublic schools and public school placements for a given level of service.

*Note: Total is for ages 6-21 only. Ages 3-21 in private placement equals 110,700 children.

A variety of funding arrangements for nonpublic schools exists depending on the particular state’s funding formulas. (See Appendix I.) Funding for nonpublic-school placements may be fully reimbursed by the state or fully paid by the local school district (which receives additional revenues from the state and federal governments to defray the costs of special education). More often, however, costs are shared between local and state-level agencies. It is generally believed that when local agencies must pay a share of the placement costs, they will have a greater incentive to contain those costs.

Government agencies other than education, such as the departments of health, mental health, juvenile justice, and social services may pay part or all of the costs of nonpublic-school placements, especially if the student is also receiving residential care. The funding formula may divide costs on a percentage-basis or by functional area of jurisdiction. For example, the local school district pays 30 percent of the costs of a nonpublic placement, with the state picking up the remainder. Or, a social services agency pays the residential portion, and the school district of residency pays the education portion for a student.

Another source of funding is the federal government. IDEA provides roughly eight percent of the funds allocated to special education by all levels of government. Additional federal funding programs for special-needs students include Medicaid, Head Start, Title 1, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Many nonpublic schools (particularly those with nonprofit tax status) also depend on private donations, though this tends to be a small portion of their overall budget. Funds may also come from the private insurance of students' families.

By law, parents or guardians may participate in designing their child's Individualized Education Plan (IEP), which directs where a child will be placed. Parents do not have the authority to unilaterally make placement decisions for their child if the placement is at public expense. Occasionally, parents, however, have successfully litigated under IDEA to force the public-school district to pay for the placement they have chosen for their child.

3. Private-Tuition Schools

Some parents opt to place their children independent of government involvement. At least 43,795 students with disabilities attend special private schools at parent expense. These include private nonsectarian schools, private religious schools, or nonpublic schools (which sometimes enroll students on a private-tuition basis in addition to students enrolled under public-agency contract).

As of 1989, the most recent year for which data is available, Catholic-church organizations operated 195 private schools throughout the United States specializing in educating children with disabilities. Among them are the St. Lucy Day School in Pennsylvania for children with visual impairments; the Mary Immaculate School in Toledo, Ohio, which serves learning disabled and crack-affected children; and St. Coleman’s Home in New York for children with autism and emotional disturbance. Other religious denominations, including the Jews, Mennonites, Quakers, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians also operate private special-education schools.

Parents may choose a private school, forgoing public funding, when they feel the school better meets the needs of their child. "A lot more money doesn't always mean you get what you want," says parent Sherry Quist. She enrolled her daughter in the Mercy Special Learning Center, a private Catholic school specializing in educating students with mental retardation. Says Quist:

Private schools may decline government support for several reasons. Some have a religious emphasis, which generally precludes public funding under current constitutional interpretations. (Private religious and secular schools can receive some public funding for compensatory education, curriculum and supplies, equipment, transportation, and health-related services.) Public funding can also bring with it additional regulations such as class-size limits, mandated student-teacher ratios, mandated admissions, personnel requirements, etc., which may interfere with the school's particular instructional approach.

The Maplebrook School, a private, nonsectarian school serving low-intelligence, learning-disabled students, discontinued its contractual relationship with New York in the 1970s. Says Maplebrook Headmaster Roger Fazzone, "The state did not pay on time and it forced the school to enroll students who did not meet the school's admission criteria." Now, says Fazzone, "Tuition bills get paid on time and we don't worry about borrowing money to meet payroll....We're able to select the youngsters we feel we can serve."

There's been a third unanticipated benefit of the policy change, says Fazzone. "We tend to attract a group of parents who take responsibility for their children's education and don't depend on the state. So many parents go through the process of trying to get the public schools to pay; they become antagonistic, blaming the state, blaming the system. Here, rather than blaming the state when their children aren't learning, they take a more active part in designing their youngster's education."

The annual cost per-student at the Maplebrook School is $31,700, including room and board, compared to the $55,000 cost of New York's state school for learning-disabled students, according to Fazzone. (Tuition at Maplebrook is actually $28,500 with the cost difference made up through fundraising.) Scholarships are available for low-income Maplebrook students.

Meaningful cost comparisons between publicly and privately funded programs cannot be conducted because of a lack of comprehensive financial data about public-sector programs. For purposes of public policy and its implementation, information about the cost differences among various placement options would be useful.

4. Homeschools

A third private placement option is the homeschool. Tom Bushnell, president and director of the National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network (NATHHAN), estimates that some 30,000 children with disabilities are homeschooled in the United States. Membership in NATHHAN, an information and resource network for families homeschooling special-needs children, numbered 4,100 families in 1996.

Bushnell says parents turn to homeschooling for many different reasons. Some want control over curriculum and its religious and moral content. Others feel a regular school doesn't provide a safe environment for their special-needs child or doesn't provide enough protection against "school-yard bullying" by other nondisabled students. Some parents resent the labeling of their children. Still others turn to homeschooling after confrontations with public-school officials over how best to educate their child.

Says Bushnell, who homeschools a blind daughter, a child with Downs syndrome, and a child with cerebral palsy, "Sometimes it's easier to do it yourself than fight. When you have to go to an IEP [Individualized Education Plan] meeting and face a multi-disciplinary team of six or eight professionals, it's stressful. It's you against the world. Parents get tired of fighting." And, he says, parents worry that the adversarial relationship with the public schools will affect the quality of care the schools give their child. "Would you want someone who you had to fight in an IEP meeting to put a catheter into your child?" asks Bushnell.

Devorah Weinmann began homeschooling her eldest daughter, who has a learning disability, after the school psychologist refused to allow her daughter to start school one grade level below her age group. Says Weinmann of her adopted daughter, "She had been through five [foster care] placements by the age of four-and-a-half. She went through hell and back to become fairly secure. [The schools] weren't looking at her as an individual....She would just be shuffled along until she failed. I said, ‘I'm not doing this.’ "

Now Weinmann homeschools all four of her children, three of whom have disabilities. She uses instructional materials altered to suit their needs and creates lessons from everyday experiences. Each child has an apprenticeship position for one-hour a week with a local business, for example. Weinmann's nine-year-old son apprentices at a produce store. "He feels responsible and valued for his work. And he sees how business runs," says Weinmann. To comply with New York state laws pertaining to homeschools, Weinmann has her children tested by an independent evaluator annually or biannually depending on their age, to measure their academic progress.

Homeschooling for children with disabilities is legal in every state. But some states have enacted legislation hostile to its practice. For example, in Arkansas, parents must hold a valid special-education teaching certificate if they wish to provide nonacademic, special-education courses, such as occupational and mobility therapy, to their children. In Oregon, public-school educators must participate in the design of the student's home-study plan, even if the homeschooling family declines government support.

Public funds and services, depending on the state's laws, are often available for homeschooled children with disabilities. Bushnell counsels parents against accepting them, fearing government intrusion. "As an organization, we encourage parents, if at all possible, to do it without government funding....Whenever you take money from the school district, the potential for the school district to tell you how to raise your child is always going to be there." Bushnell recounts complaints from homeschooling parents who have been contacted by social-service agencies, or hotlined to the Child Protection Services by anonymous callers concerned about homeschooling. Says Bushnell, "These parents love their children and want what's best for them. They take their responsibility very seriously. What they want from government is they want to be left alone."

Kids 1 provides management and instructional services for children with disabilities throughout New Jersey. The High Road Schools, two nonpublic day schools which form a division of Kids 1, enroll 250 students in grades preK-12 under contract with local public school districts. Students at the High Road Schools may have developmental delays or neurological impairments manifesting themselves as learning disabilities, speech impairments, or attention-deficit disorders. Students may have low or high levels of intelligence. The IQ of High Road students ranges from 75 to 140.

5. Performance Outcomes

With few exceptions, useful performance measures are lacking in special education. Virtually no information exists allowing educators to compare student outcomes among different placements. In addition, the costs of special education are rarely considered together with actual student results.

"[T]here has been very little information about the educational results of this group of students," reports the U.S. Department of Education in its annual report to Congress about students with disabilities. The department notes that students with disabilities are disproportionately excluded from state and national assessments for a variety of reasons. According to the report:

Only recently has the U.S. Department of Education begun to measure the achievement of public-school students with disabilities as a group. Existing research indicates that students with disabilities fare poorly. As a group, students with disabilities have higher rates of absenteeism, are more likely to drop out, and earn lower grades than their nondisabled peers. Taken from the National Longitudinal Transition Study, the research evaluated results only from regular public secondary schools; students in private schools, nonpublic schools, and separate public schools were not included in the study. More refined measures are needed, so that parents and educators can identify educational placements that result in improved student achievement.

Nonpublic and private schools are also attempting to offer more conclusive evidence about the value of their programs. Says Gerard Thiers, executive director of New Jersey's Association of Schools and Agencies for the Handicapped (ASAH), "The National Report to Congress indicates high rates of failure. Our [nonpublic school] members think they're more successful getting kids into the community and getting them employed. We think we're more effective and we want to get the data."

1. Background

A catch-all category, students at-risk are those who struggle academically and/or socially in school. At-risk students are often caught in an education no-man's land; they are neither eligible for extra services through special education (unless they have a disability), nor are they well served by regular education. There is no standard definition of at-risk, but the term is generally used to indicate students who, for a variety of reasons, are likely to dropout, or fail out, of school. The Minnesota Department of Education describes at-risk students as those meeting at least one of the following criteria:

Compared to special-education legislation, public policies for at-risk students are less formalized and regulated. Local education administrators generally have broad authority over how and if students exhibiting at-risk behaviors are served outside the regular classroom. Some school districts have created elaborate programs in-house to serve at-risk youth; others do nothing beyond providing at-risk youth with the same education as other students. Many school districts contract with a nonpublic school or program to provide education and other services. Parents and guardians of at-risk youth who find the public-school programs inadequate or inappropriate for their children often bypass the system altogether, choosing to enroll them in a private, tuition-based school or program.

Services for at-risk youth can include tutoring, full-time instruction, vocational education, drug treatment, counseling, childcare, and residential care. Alternative education may range from independent study allowing the student to hold a full-time job while working toward a GED, to highly structured, secure, residential programs incorporating behavior modification and therapy.

2. Nonpublic Schools

At least seven states—Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Florida—have formal, legislated programs enabling public schools to contract with nonpublic schools, also known as alternative schools, to serve at-risk students (See Appendix II). Lack of enabling legislation does not prevent school districts from contracting with nonpublic alternative schools, however. Districts in at least seventeen states contract with private- providers to serve at-risk youth.

Says Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Alternative Program Director Fermin Burgos about the contract arrangement, "It enables MPS to provide a whole range of different options. We want tailor-made programs for pregnant teens, chronic disrupters, or students coming from juvenile institutions. With contracting, we can offer those programs. In some cases they are more effective than the traditional schools."

If a child is identified as being at-risk and does not qualify for special education and is not an adjudicated youth, nonpublic-school day programs are available often at a cost equal to or lower than what the referring school district spends for regular education. For example, in Minnesota only the per-pupil amount of state aid used to fund regular education may follow the at-risk student to the program site. The district retains the local revenue share plus 22 percent of the state aid to cover district-administration costs. In 1994-95, average per-pupil funding from state, local, and federal sources totaled $6,391 for Minnesota students. (Note: this figure is an average for all students in the state including primary and secondary students, regular and special-education students.) By contrast, nonpublic alternative schools received between $3,150 and $3,600 per at-risk pupil depending on the student's age.

In most cases, referrals to contract programs are made by a parent, school counselor, or teacher to the school board or superintendent of the student's home district. Placement in a nonpublic school is usually made with the student's and parent's consent. Parents, however, do not have the authority to unilaterally place their student in a nonpublic school without school-district approval if they expect the placement to be publicly funded.

For more severely troubled youth (including those with emotional disabilities or a history of juvenile delinquency), referrals may come from various agencies including the school system, the juvenile justice system, child welfare authorities, private physicians and medical groups and state institutions.

3. Private-Tuition Schools

Some alternative schools for at-risk students operate as private charities or on a parent-pay basis and receive little or no public funding. One example is Father Flanagan’s Boys Home in Boys Town, Nebraska—serving neglected and delinquent youth. Boys Town receives approximately 60 percent of its revenues from private sources, despite the fact that most of its referrals come from public agencies. (See case example.)

Parents of troubled youth sometimes seek independent placements. Wilderness camps, ranches, college-prep schools, and alternative schools are often a parent's only recourse for those youth for whom other public or nonpublic school placements have failed. Lon Woodbury is an education placement consultant who helps parents locate a school or program that best meets the needs of their child. Says Woodbury, "Most of these programs were founded by someone who looked around trying to help these kids and there was nothing for them....So they took a risk, put up their own money and went into the school business."

States are involved in accrediting and making sure schools meet minimum health and safety standards. But most oversight comes from parents who select the school and are responsible for tuition and residential fees. Woodbury estimates that the cost of a quality residential program for troubled youth averages $2,500 a month. Scholarships and private insurance may pay some of that amount.

Unlike special education, where parents have successfully litigated to have the government pay the full cost of a private placement made by the parent, at-risk students are not guaranteed by federal law a "free and appropriate" education. Generally, parents cannot place their at-risk child in a private school and then expect reimbursement from the public schools. While tuition costs can pose a barrier to low-income families, Woodbury notes that the absence of government funding has some advantages. Says Woodbury, "He who pays the piper calls the tune. If the parent pays, they can demand and get action."

1. Background

Public concern is growing as the rate of juvenile crime increases. In 1991, juveniles were responsible for one in five violent crimes and committed 14 percent of all robberies and 21 percent of all assaults. The U.S. Justice Department reported in 1995 that it expects the juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes to double in 15 years. The current murder rate among teens has risen 165 percent in the past decade, according to the department.

In 1990, over 680,800 juveniles under the age of 21 were admitted into traditional juvenile facilities such as detention centers, reception centers, training schools, and ranches. In 1991, there were 984 such facilities in the United States. Seventeen percent of juveniles confined in these settings were held in privately operated facilities. Eighty-eight percent of the incarcerated juvenile population is male.

Because most juveniles are confined for relatively short periods, the population of incarcerated youth in institutional facilities on any given day is roughly 63,000 juveniles. An additional 29,214 juveniles in custody are housed in 2,224 shelters, halfway houses, and group homes. These alternative facilities are physically unrestricted environments allowing nonviolent juveniles extensive access to the local community. Eighty-four percent of shelters, halfway houses, and group homes are privately operated. (See Table 4).

State compulsory education laws requiring children to attend school until a specified age also apply to adjudicated and incarcerated youth. Private facilities, either nonprofit or for-profit, are subject to governmental licensing and regulations, but are otherwise privately owned and operated. The educational program in private facilities is usually provided by the facility operator, according to industry officials. In unrestricted environments, such as shelters, halfway houses, and group homes, students in some cases attend public schools.

In general, almost all juveniles are held in facilities providing basic educational services. The quality, however, varies greatly, with some facilities using classrooms only to warehouse students and others providing comprehensive individualized assessment and instruction. A U.S. Department of Justice survey found that most facility administrators believed improvements were needed in their educational programs. Little, if any, comprehensive research exists describing the outcomes and results of educational programs within juvenile facilities. A 1994 U.S. Department of Justice report recommends that "such a study be undertaken in order to better evaluate the capacity of educational programs in juvenile confinement facilities to serve [educational] needs..."

Note: Figures in italics are derived estimates. Juveniles in unrestricted shelters, halfway houses, and group homes may attend public schools; more detailed information about education providers for this population is not available.

Source: Conditions of Confinement, and Juvenile Offenders and Victims, U.S. Department of Justice

The same U.S. Justice Department report stated, "Although there is extensive anecdotal and experiential evidence on the educational deficiencies...of juvenile offenders, we have no systematic empirical data on confined youths' educational or treatment needs and problems. Thus, we cannot determine whether facilities provide appropriate programs or whether juveniles make progress during confinement."

According to Peter Leone, a juvenile corrections researcher at the University of Maryland, education programs for incarcerated youth are a low priority for states faced with budget problems. Says Leone, "The programs are highly variable with regard to both the skills young people learn and the resources to do the job....In places, such as parts of the midwest, where there is a strong tradition of education, they have a pretty good program in correctional education." But, he says, "many abysmal programs continue to operate because there's no systematic oversight." Few states systematically collect longitudinal data on recidivism rates for juvenile offenders. Without such information, sentencing officials cannot determine which placements would be most effective at rehabilitating a particular juvenile. Furthermore, the absence of data about juvenile outcomes means providers (both public and private) face less competitive pressure to produce the desired results since they continue to receive referrals regardless of their performance.

Adjudicated and incarcerated youth present special problems for educators. They often have a prior history of truancy and test significantly below grade level. Many have been diagnosed with learning, behavioral, or other disabilities. Some 10,400 students in correctional facilities receive special-education services under federal law. Incarcerated youth may lack skills in moral reasoning. Many have been incarcerated because of their violent behavior; for educators, this means taking extra precautions. One federal study noted, for example, that educators often did not permit their students to take pencils outside the classroom, fearing they would be used as weapons. A missing pencil in one facility's classroom resulted in a strip search of the students.

2. Funding

Funding for adjudicated youth typically comes from the state's department of juvenile justice, but is often augmented by revenues from federal and state programs such as special education, Title 1 (compensatory education) funds, and Medicaid.

After sentencing, placement decisions for adjudicated youth may be made by the state or local juvenile justice agency. If the sentencing judge recommends a particular program, the agency will generally try to be accommodating. For private placements, the agency negotiates rates with the provider or pays an amount based on government cost formulas. In 1994, the average daily cost of incarcerating a juvenile was $107.23, according to the Criminal Justice Institute.

An emerging alternative arrangement for difficult-to-educate students is the charter school. Charter schools are autonomous publicly funded schools freed from most state and local regulations. A 1995 survey by the Education Commission of the States indicated that one-half of the charter schools in the seven states surveyed were designed to serve at-risk students. Charter schools serving at-risk students include Options for Youth Charter School in California, the Arizona Career Academy, and the Boston University Charter School for homeless students.

Some charter schools specialize in serving students with disabilities. The Metro Deaf Charter School in Minnesota, for example, serves students with hearing impairments. Borrowing on a concept from special education, many charter schools create Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for all their students, enabling them to customize education without labeling children. Charter law in several states allows private organizations to create and operate charter schools with public funding. As of August 1996, twenty-six states had passed charter-school laws.

A discussion of full inclusion—the integration of students with disabilities into regular classrooms on a full-time basis—is beyond the scope of this policy paper. In the course of this research, the author came across a number of private special-education schools that had implemented full-inclusion policies by pairing their special-education schools with their private regular education schools. These include the Oak Crest County Day School in New Jersey, and St. Lucy Day School for Children with Visual Impairments. In addition, many regular private schools fully include students with moderate disabilities. More research is needed about the impact of full inclusion on student performance, and the extent to which regular private schools accommodate students with disabilities.

Cooperative arrangements among public and private agencies also exist to serve difficult-to-educate students. The Multi-Agency Program (MAP) for at-risk students in Spokane, Washington, receives direct classroom services from three agencies, including the Spokane Public Schools, the police department, and the private Spokane Mental Health Center. In New York, Hillside Children's Center, a private residential facility specializing in educating and caring for emotionally disturbed children, operates a program in which it provides clinical services to a nearby public special-education school. Often, children receiving residential care in privately operated facilities, such as emergency shelters, group homes, or treatment facilities, will attend public school during the day.

For purposes of analysis, education for difficult-to-educate youth can be categorized into three overlapping programs: special education, at-risk education, and corrections education. Up to five sectors may be involved in the provision of these programs: public schools, charter schools, nonpublic schools, private schools, and homeschools.

While each of these programs and sectors has many unique qualities, they can be differentiated by four defining characteristics. The first characteristic is the degree to which parents versus public officials control the placement decision. Who is the gatekeeper on whether or not a child is served by a particular program and in a particular placement? The funding source, public or private, is the second characteristic. The third characteristic pertains to the legislative environment and the extent to which the program operates with mandated funding and special legislative protections. The fourth characteristic is concerned with ownership; is the school or program a government entity or is it privately owned? (See Appendix III.)

How is this collection of programs, sectors, and characteristics to be evaluated? As a preliminary effort, we will evaluate them against a model delivery system. As we define it, a good model for serving difficult-to-educate students has the following three attributes: