Forum Brief

No Child Left Behind and the Juvenile Justice Education System: A Plan for National Collaboration

A Congressional Briefing — November 15, 2005

Juvenile Justice Basics

There were 104,413 youth incarcerated in residential facilities in 2002. according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Estimated cumulative totals of detained and incarcerated youth are about 500,000 annually
The Department of Education spends approximately $1,200 per Neglected and Delinquent student compared to $2,200 per student across all public school programs
Among 11,000 incarcerated youth in Florida, those with high academic achievement, as measured by academic courses, credits, diplomas and certificates, were more likely to return to public school. The longer they remained in school, the less the likelihood that they would be rearrested.

Summary

At this policy briefing, members of congressional staffs learned about progress toward forming a National Collaboration to help the states “implement with integrity” the sections of the No Child Left Behind Act that apply to Neglected and Delinquent Children.

“No Child Left Behind is potentially the most favorable thing that happened to juvenile justice in the last 100 years,” said Thomas G. Blomberg, Dean of the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Sheldon L. Messinger Professor of Criminology at Florida State University in Tallahassee. But, he emphasized, that will require “implementation with integrity” of the act’s support for improvements in the measurable outcomes of juvenile justice education systems.

Juvenile justice schools are supposed to meet the Act’s general requirements for highly qualified teachers, and annual academic testing to determine whether their students are making adequate yearly progress. They must also comply with other specific requirements, such as using assessment results and research-based methods to improve educational programs, emphasizing the transition from custody into school and the community, and demonstrating that more youth are returning to school, earning a diploma or obtaining a job following release.

However, implementation of the law has been uneven, according to a survey of state and local administrators conducted by the congressionally funded National Collaboration Project directed by Blomberg. States and localities differ widely in assigning agencies responsibility for juvenile justice education. Many, especially at large facilities in rural areas, find it difficult to hire and retain certified teachers, much less “highly qualified” teachers assigned to teach their specialties. The uneven quality of juvenile justice education, both between states and within them, has inspired 25 lawsuits against states in the past 20 years. Most charged that states failed to meet their constitutional obligation to provide a fair and appropriate public education to the 43 percent of youth in custody who have been identified as having disabilities.

Blomberg said that, while the project’s survey found “passive support” for the Act’s provisions on children in custody, “The big controversy is, ‘Where do we get the money?’ Here we have another federal mandate with no enabling money.”

Compared to public schools, those in the juvenile justice system must deal with a disproportionately high number of students who are below their age-appropriate grade level and have chronic histories of suspension, expulsion, dropout, truancy and school discipline problems. Reconnecting them to school, through academic accomplishments that let them transition to public schools upon their release, can lower the recidivism rates that help account for the fact that juveniles commit half the nation’s crimes, at a cost to the victims of more than $450 billion a year, Blomberg said.

“We’re not telling people to hug a delinquent,” Blomberg said. “We are saying, get smart about educating them.”

However, many states haven’t acquired the capability of conducting the system-wide accountability and evaluation called for in the No Child Left Behind Act. In 2004, 19 states were not currently reporting on Adequate Yearly Progress in their juvenile justice schools, 18 states reported that they collected less than three measures of youth outcomes, and some said they did not collect any educational performance data at all on incarcerated youth.

Blomberg said the collaboration project has compiled the first master list of every state’s administrative structure for juvenile justice education, and identified personnel responsible for administration, evaluation, and compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. Its researchers now are constructing a typology that groups the challenges mentioned by those officials into three categories: national problems, similar problems shared by groups of states, and problems unique to one state.

The project based at Florida State University will host a national conference of agencies, administrators and evaluators in early 2006. At general sessions and at workshops, participants will be able to discuss the problems they have identified, refine their implementation plans, express their research needs, develop working partnerships with the Education and Justice Departments, obtain briefings on plans to exchange information via a Web site and peer-reviewed journal, and form a national association that could assist its members, the public and policymakers in reaching a consensus on aspects of juvenile justice education that should be considered when Congress begins the process of re-authorizing the No Child Left Behind Act.

Presenter

Dr. Thomas G. Blomberg, Dean of the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Sheldon L. Messinger Professor of Criminology, Florida State University, and Principal Investigator, Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program, has experience from more than thirty years of university teaching, training, research, evaluation, and practical experience in criminal and juvenile justice. He is internationally recognized for his corrections research, and is frequently called upon as a consultant and expert witness. He has written over 160 books, monographs, articles, chapters and papers and has extensive experience in directing large-scale research grants. Dr. Blomberg also serves as Series Editor of the New Lines in Criminology Series. For questions, suggestions, and information about the National Collaboration Project, contact the university’s Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research at 850-414-8355.

Dr. Thomas Blomberg

Dean, and Sheldon L. Messinger Professor of Criminology

College of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Florida State University

The Hecht House

Tallahassee, FL 32306-1127

850-644-7365

tblomber@mailer.fsu.edu

This brief summarizes an American Youth Policy Briefing that took place on November 15, 2005 on Capitol Hill, reported by Andrew Mollison.

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) is a non-profit, nonpartisan professional development organization that bridges youth policy, practice and research for professionals working on youth policy issues at the national, state and local levels.