Disciplinary alternative education in Texas is not only failing, it’s exacerbating crime and poverty in the minority community, a panel on the subject concluded on Dec. 7. The event, hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, looked into the program, which was designed to move disruptive and dangerous students from classes, but which has begun ensnaring many more Texas schoolchildren, mostly from disadvantaged families.

Texas passed legislation in 1995 to require that all school districts establish Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEP). The programs take in disruptive students and, in theory, provide alternative instruction. The reality, however, is far different.

Dr. Robert Barr of the Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies at Boise State University in Idaho , said the Texas program provides little instruction while taking students out of the learning environment and placing them in one which is destined for failure. “You need to look at the program and ask the question: ‘Are we manufacturing low achievement?’” he said. Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston), a frequent critic of DAEP programs, called them the “education sewer.”

Biggest complaints
The program was designed for a very small subset of the population, but has now grown to include a broader segment of children. Last year, 103,696 individual students were placed in DAEP programs. Students can be placed in the program through either mandatory or discretionary procedures. Mandatory placement covers students who commit a crime on campus.

Students who commit serious crimes on campus, such as homicide, kidnapping, illegal trafficking of persons, sexual offenses or assault, are expelled and placed in the Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program run by the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. However, a loophole in state law prevents schools from expelling students for crimes committed off campus (where most take place), and instead forces schools to place students who have committed even the most heinous of crimes in the same room with students who violated minor school rules – in DAEP.

The latter is where a growing number of placements come from - the discretionary placements. But the program is only nominally discretionary, because the classroom teacher can force the school’s hand. David Anderson , general counsel for the Texas Education Agency, said that if a teacher orders a student into DAEP, the school must send that student, although the school can determine the length of the stay.

Other members of the panel, however, said the districts themselves are just as guilty of over-sentencing through harsh, inflexible zero-tolerance policies on rules infractions. Dutton noted a constituent’s child who was placed in the alternative system for chewing gum.

Discretionary placements have now risen to 77 percent of the total of all students placed in DAEP. With virtually no limit to who can be placed in the program, the system is exposed to almost any kind of abuse. Richard LaVallo, an attorney with Advocacy Inc., a non-profit corporation advocating for people with disabilities, said a common abuse is to place students with disabilities in the program. Such kids may indeed be difficult for teachers to deal with – but for reasons of their disability.

“What happens,” LaVallo said, “is that it’s a convenient way of moving [disabled] kids from regular schools to DAEP.” LaVallo, also noting the large proportion of minority students in the program, said the effect was essentially to “re-segregate the schools.” Dutton, however, pointed out that he has “never seen a football player in these programs, and they’re often disruptive students.” Dutton said many placements in the program are driven by money. Schools, he said, often benefit by getting a portion of their population out of their regular classrooms.

Another concern with the program, raised by TPPF moderator Marc Levin, is that scores for DAEP students on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test are assigned to the district as a whole, and are not included in the score for the individual school from which they came. That raises the possibility that schools could inflate their own scores by removing students they know are likely to fail the test.

Lack of standards

Although the panel members all agreed that some kind of program was needed, the current program for alternative education was derided as virtually useless. One of the key points made was that while it was alternative, it isn’t exactly education. DAEP programs provide basic instruction that is not always grade-appropriate. In some districts, all elementary grades are placed in one classroom. LaVallo said they are a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Additionally, the programs are only required to operate four hours a day. Some operate as little as two hours a day.

Although students are supposed to be sent to the classrooms because of their behavior, there is no attempt at behavioral modification, nor is there adequate screening of the problems – often symptoms of learning disabilities – that led to the placement. Finally, there is no plan to re-integrate the children back into their classrooms when they leave DAEP.

Most surprising of all, the programs prohibit students from bringing books or homework into or out of the DAEP classroom, which makes keeping up with the child’s original class virtually impossible. The biggest concern with the system, Barr said, is that the children who are on the cusp of failure already are pushed over the edge, and a direct pipeline toward prisons is created. Students who are forced into programs like Texas ’ DAEP are significantly likely to fail, and therefore unlikely to graduate. Dropping out, Barr said, is one of the largest single determining factors in which children are likely to go to jail as adults.

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