hose students in need of academic and social or emotional remediation or rehabilitation. Remedial schools reflect the belief that, with proper treatment, students would be able to be reintegrated into mainstream educational settings. Quinn and Rutherford (1998) posit that innovative schools are committed to adapting to the individual needs of the students, whereas last chance and remedial schools seek to “fix the student who is broken” (p. 16). According to Lehr and Lange (2003), during the 1980s, alternative programs mainly focused on remediation, whereas the political climate of 1990s rekindled interest in programs for chronically disruptive children and youth and those suspended or expelled from school.
Fitzsimons Hughes and her colleagues (2006) recently sought to distinguish among alternative educational programs and identified three different types of settings, each of which serves a specific population of children and youth. Type 1 settings mainly serve gifted or advanced students, special education students, students who have engaged in substance abuse (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, or drugs), students who are pregnant, and students with a history of truancy. Type 2 settings primarily serve students, on a short-term basis, that pose serious discipline problems. Many times, these students with discipline problems are court-mandated to attend these schools due to serious behavioral infractions that occurred in their home school. Last, Type 3 settings are designed to be therapeutic in nature and to serve children and adolescents that have been diagnosed as having serious emotional or behavioral problems. Given the disparate philosophical and programmatic emphasis of these programs, both the motive behind placement and the subsequent impact on students’ attitude and behavior is likely very different (Lehr & Lange, 2003).
Quinn and Rutherford (1998) identified six components they judged essential to quality alternative programs. These components include: (a) procedures for conducting functional assessment of academic and nonacademic behavior; (b) flexible curriculum that places emphasis on functional academic, social, and daily living skills; (c) effective and efficient instructional strategies; (d) transition programs and procedures that link the alternative program to mainstream educational settings and the larger community; (e) comprehensive systems for providing students both internal alternative educational services and external community-based services and lastly; (f) appropriate staff and adequate resources to serve students with disabilities. Similarly, Fitzsimons Hughes et al. (2006) singled out six core characteristics that distinguish alternative programs from more traditional educational programs. These characteristics include: (a) a comprehensive student evaluation and referral system; (b) an educational program that is aligned with student real-world expectations and that reflects various nontraditional teaching and learning options; (c) programming that promotes social, emotional, and behavioral change within a safe, positive and nonpunitive environment; (d) ongoing staff training and development; (e) polices and practices that support student transition from a more to a less restrictive environment (e.g., mainstream campus, job placement, alternative educational setting) and finally; (f) ongoing program evaluation and data based decision making.
A significant overlap is evident between characteristics identified by Fitzsimons Hughes and her colleagues (2006) and Quinn and Rutherford (1998). In addition, few would dispute the legitimacy of any of these attributes. However, the dearth of wide scale investigations of some of these variables represents a major obstacle to the growth of quality alternative programs.
Obstacles to research on alternative schooling. One obstacle to ensuring children and youth quality services is that few empirical studies have been conducted that squarely address the question of what constitutes quality alternative schooling. Researchers have mainly examined student satisfaction and