Education Lags in California’s Juvenile Justice System

A recent report by the Youth Law Center highlighted a sad truth in California, where roughly 200,000 people are incarcerated: Education for younger people behind bars, the sort of thing that could help them grow beyond criminality early, is lagging. 

EdSource wrote on Dec. 1 about the report, which measured data from the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years and looked at attendance in court schools. These are schools young people sometimes attend for short times while they are going through the juvenile justice system. Among other things, the report captured that data isn’t always kept for these short stays, as author Betty Márquez Rosales notes:

“The report highlighted that it has long been anecdotally understood by researchers, probation staff and others working in education within the juvenile justice system that student attendance is often transitory given the dynamic nature of the legal system. The report’s authors argue that instructional programming should reflect this knowledge by calculating any partial credits earned by recording them in student transcripts once they leave juvenile detention. Students also need additional services to more seamlessly move back into their local schools.”

There are other points throughout the article that attest to a simple truth: California could be doing more for this group of vulnerable students.

Read more in “State data collection systems failing students in juvenile detention, report says” on EdSource.org.