gence of public schooling in America. In the end, Katz asserts that incipient bureaucracy triumphed in a system in which education, morality, and docility were combined to define a properly educated citizen. Critics of our present education system might understandably claim that some things have not changed significantly in 200 years. Indeed, current discipline policies appear to mirror earlier practices. As in the past, a common response today to disruptive classroom behavior is the imposition of an aversive consequence (Colvin, Sugai, & Kameenui, 1999; Skiba & Peterson, 2000, 2003; Witt, 1986). Figures show that a zero tolerance attitude regarding student misbehavior has lead to a substantial increase in the number of students annually suspended or expelled from public schools (Skiba & Peterson, 2003). Unfortunately, for some youngsters, misbehavior is the first step on the slippery slope that leads to more restrictive placement (e.g., detention centers, correctional facilities, treatment programs).
In the following article, we examine some of the major issues surrounding children and adolescents who fail to behave acceptably in school. First, we discuss the reciprocal nature and deleterious effects that learning and behavior problems have on students. We focus attention on discipline in schools and the impact of various practices on student outcomes. Next, we highlight programs that, beginning in the late 1940s through the early 1970s, dramatically altered the course of education and treatment of children and adolescents with challenging behavior. Then, we identify characteristics that distinguish current alternative programs for children and youth and variables that appear essential to quality programming. Finally, we encourage researchers to talk more to practitioners and vice versa about critical issues that relate to alternative schooling.
The Changing Scene in Public Education
A mismatch exists between the structure of schools and the cultural, social, and linguistic background of some segments of the student population. Even so, the present school-age population is more culturally and linguistically diverse than ever before. The readiness gap is growing, whereby an increasing number of young children come to school ill-prepared to succeed in a traditional classroom milieu. Those same children who do not do well when they begin their schooling frequently evidence learning and behavior problems across the elementary school years. These behavior problems are exacerbated by exposure to inconsistent and largely punitive classroom management strategies. Left untreated, student problems multiply, diversify, and intensify which, in turn, increases the probability that school personnel will seek to remove the student from the regular classroom (Skiba & Peterson, 2000, 2003).
Students who experience repeated academic frustration and failure are more likely to exhibit behavior problems, many of which are escape motivated. Students who are unable to participate successfully in daily classroom instruction look for ways to escape what they perceive as a highly aversive situation (Gable, 2004; Shores, Gunter, & Jacks, 1993). The inordinate amount of attention given to pupil compliance rather than teacher accommodations compounds the problem and increases significantly the probability of academic difficulties (e.g., Zigmond, 2000).
Discipline in schools. Students faced with repeated academic failure often engage in noncompliant or acting-out behavior to protect themselves from the constant drubbing associated with a negative learning environment. The noncompliant behavior triggers predictably an office referral, in-school or out-of-school suspension, failing grades, and grade retention; for many students, a growing sense of alienation and despair causes them to drop out of school. Many students suffer this fate; however, students variously labeled emotionally disturbed, emotionally handicapped, and behaviorally disordered are disproportionately affected (Gable, 2004). As one principal said, “you don’t get it… we don’t want to u