Education

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system often face significant barriers to academic achievement. Detained or committed youth are displaced from their normal school environment and face difficulties reentering school after they exit the system. Educational experiences across institutions vary significantly, ranging from facilities offering only minimal instruction for a few hours to those providing nearly full-day academic programming. Additionally, many children within the juvenile justice system have educational disabilities that are either ignored or go unnoticed. These youth are at a greater risk for academic failure than their peers. The resources below discuss the barriers to education that youth in the juvenile justice system face and highlight how to improve the educational experience of those children.

CCLP Publications

 

CCLP Presentations

Other Resources

• Getting Out of the Red Zone [download]
  This publication describes a series of focus groups of youth who were or had been in the juvenile justice or foster care systems, parents of such youth, and foster parents. It contains comments from the participants on school disruptions, suspensions and expulsions, and the quality of education and contains ideas on how to improve the educational experiences of youth in those situations.

• Reducing School Referrals: Reducing Racial Disparities and the Criminalization of Low Risk Youth [download]
  In this May 2009 during the third annual meeting of the MacArthur DMC Action Network, Judge Steve Teske of Clayton County, Georgia promoted the use of a protocol for handling school disciplinary incidents.

• Working With Families of Children in the Juvenile Justice and Corrections Systems: A Guide for Education Program Leaders, Principals, and Building Administrators [download]
  This guide is one in a series addressing how administrators, teachers, families, and students overcome the multiple barriers to family involvement in juvenile justice and corrections systems. This guide focuses on how facility directors and head school administrators can foster family involvement.

• National Juvenile Justice Education Data Clearinghouse [link]
  The Florida State University Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research maintains this o address the lack of research and information available in the field of juvenile justice education. The Clearinghouse contains national publications on juvenile justice education, as well as state-by-state reports and information.

• School Failure, Race, and Disability: Promoting Positive Outcomes, Decreasing Vulnerability for Involvement with the Juvenile Delinquency System [download]
  This report examines school failure, disability, and ethnic minority status, and how these factors place children and youth at risk for involvement with the juvenile or adult criminal justice system. The paper identifies what works and what doesn't work with respect to improving outcomes for these at-risk youth, and it discusses how policies for addressing misbehavior and juvenile delinquency might be reframed to focus on evidence-based practices.

• Collaborate to Educate: Special Education in Juvenile Correctional Facilities [download]
  This report emphasizes collaboration as a best practice approach to improving education and special education services for incarcerated youth, and identifies core elements of successful education programs in detention and confinement facilities.

• Improving Education Services for Students in Detention and Confinement Facilities [download]
  This report from the Children's Legal Rights Journal outlines the constitutional and statutory bases for educational entitlements for incarcerated youth, as well as litigation interpreting and reinforcing those entitlements.

• Tools for Promoting Educational Success and Reducing Delinquency [link]
  In March 2005, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education and  the National Disability Rights Network convened a meeting of national organizations and other entities and professionals to discuss their shared interest in addressing the disproportionate number of children with disabilities in contact with the juvenile justice system, including those with special education (SE) needs. The product was a toolkit that serves as a compendium of best practices for promoting the educational stability of youth with disabilities and those at risk of developing disabilities.