A third of the districts that run their own schools for students in academic peril, or “alternative schools,” were unable to enroll new students during the 2007-08 school year because of staffing or space limitations, according to a new study.
That proportion increases to 46 percent in cities and 38 percent in suburbs, according to the survey from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, which presents national estimates on the availability of alternative schools in public school systems.
Sixty-four percent of districts reported having at least one such school, according to the report. In at least 40 percent of the districts, at least one alternative school was run by the district rather than a separate entity. Nationwide, 86 percent of the nations 646,500 alternative school students were in institutions run by a district.