Education

Report: Juvenile Justice Schools Doing More Harm Than Good

April 18th, 2014

Juvenile justice education programs may be doing more harm than good according to a new study by the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation.As heard on the radio

Through a compilation of federal data, the report concludes incarcerated youths often receive an education worse than they would outside the juvenile justice system, and one that’s more expensive.

“They’re not being challenged,” said Katherine Dunn, who’s with the Southern Education Foundation. “The schools aren’t offering them high-quality teachers or new technology, updated text books, curriculum. Education is not the main focus of these students’ days while they’re incarcerated.”

In Georgia, the report says between 2010 and 2011, just more than 1,500 teens were eligible to earn a high school degree while in a detention center. Of that number, only 9 percent left with a diploma or GED.

Just more than half of the 2,000 high-school age students left state facilities without receiving any high school credit.

The state didn’t stray too far from nationwide figures. The national averages for graduation and teens who earn high school credit are 8 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

“If they aren’t advancing their education and developing and improving themselves while they’re in that environment, it can actually do more harm than a mediocre education,” Dunn said.

Despite those low outcomes, the foundation says in 2009, educating a child in Georgia’s juvenile justice system cost almost $6,000 more than public school.

“I was kind of not surprised at all,” said Joe Vignati, who’s with Governor Nathan Deal’s Office of Children and Families.

Vignati says there’s room for improvement in how the state educates young offenders – but he said the state is moving in a good direction, especially in the last two years, but deferred specifics to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

The Southern Education Foundation in its reports acknowledges young offenders often face obstacles that make learning more difficult.

“These children, mostly teenagers, usually are behind in school, possess substantial learning disabilities, exhibit recognizable behavioral problems, and are coping with serious emotional or psychological problems,” the report says.

Reforms to the juvenile justice system went into effect at the beginning of this year.

They allow judges more freedom to steer young offenders to community based programs rather than incarceration and include more funding for bolstering some counseling programs.

The Department of Juvenile Justice did not return calls before airtime.