nderstand these kids; we want to get them out” (Skiba & Peterson, 2000, p. 340). It is not surprising that, the drop-out rate among students with disabilities is nearly twice that of the general education population. Of those students who fail to complete a high school education, nearly 60% are labeled emotionally disturbed (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996). Steinberg and Knitzer’s (1992) blunt assessment that our system of public education is miserably failing these students’ captures well the untenable position in which many children and youth find themselves. Unfortunately, failure to properly educate these youngsters seems to be an acceptable option.
Emergence of alternative education programs. One of the earliest references to the role of education in addressing the needs of children and adolescents with challenging behavior appeared in 1925, in a book entitled Wayward Youth by August Aichhorn. About that time, school boards across the United States began to explore different approaches to providing an education to high-risk students, some of whom had already dropped out of school (Fitzsimmons Hughes, Baker, Criste, Huffty, Link, Roberts, Snipes, Valore, Ware, Xander, 2006; Lange & Sletten, 2002). For example, in 1946, the New York City School Board established the 600 schools for children with emotional disturbances (Berkowitz & Rothman, 1967). In the early 1950s, Kornberg established Hawthorne-Cedar Knolls School and Fenichel started the League School, in Brooklyn, NY, in attempts to keep children with severe emotional problems in the community by substituting day treatment for hospitalization (Knoblock, 1966). At about the same time, Redl and Wineman (1952) established Pioneer House in Detroit, MI, to serve troubled adolescents from which emerged the life-space interview. In the early 1960s, Hobbs and his colleagues established Project Re-ED (Bullock, 2004; Hobbs, 1965). In Project Re-ED, emphasis was on mental healthnot mental illness and on the present-not the past. Another alternative school, Croton- on-Campus program, was established in a housing project in Syracuse, NY and served a predominantly urban student population (Knoblock, 1966). Viewed together, these efforts to provide alternative schooling signaled a major shift in philosophy, as each of these programs put emphasis on education as a way to directly influence the life circumstances of troubled children and youth.
One might argue that enactment of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142), in 1975, slowed the development of innovative programs-especially for students with challenging behavior. With this landmark legislation, federal dollars were appropriated to support breath rather than depth of services for children identified with a range of mild to severe disabilities. Recent legislation may be having an adverse effect on alternative programs as well. With the institution of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), programs that once operated autonomously now are being subjected to increased external control.
Today, alternative education occupies a position o\f increased acceptability and respectability. As Fitzsimmons Hughes et al. (2006) assert, mounting recognition of the legitimate role of alternative schools is attributable, at least in part, to recent federal legislation. Both the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (2004) call into question the longstanding practice of suspension and expulsion of students who engage in disruptive classroom behavior and both substitute language that places importance on “expel but educate” (Fitzsimmons Hughes et al., 2006). At a legislative level, alternative schools are no longer dumping grounds for those students who exhibit norm-violating behavior that prohibits them (or others) from reaching academic and social success (Fuller & Sabatino, 1996). Even so, the tremendous pressure associated with high stakes standards-based testing has lead some school officials to push out low performers and troublemakers-including students from diverse ethnic, racial