At the Margins of Education: The Effects of Alternative Education on Student Outcomes

Each year, over half a million U.S. students attend an alternative school or program due to academic or behavioral challenges. Despite their prevalence, alternative education placements remain understudied relative to other exclusionary schooling practices. This dissertation examines the impacts of alternative education referrals on student outcomes using large-scale administrative data from the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). Indiana, with its diverse school contexts and relatively punitive disciplinary landscape, provides a compelling site for studying alternative education’s role in educational stratification. This dissertation consists of three studies that analyze the impact of alternative education referrals on student outcomes. Chapter 2 investigates how the duration of alternative education placements affects same-year academic and disciplinary outcomes. Findings indicate that students placed for extended periods exhibit lower standardized test scores and higher suspension rates, though they maintain higher grade point averages, suggesting differential impacts on discretionary versus standardized outcomes. Chapter 3 explores alternative education recidivism, revealing that one in four students experience a secondary placement after their first placement. Recidivism is disproportionately concentrated among Black, Latinx, and Native American students and is associated with increased dropout and juvenile incarceration risk. Chapter 4 examines the consequences of alternative education referrals on students’ postsecondary pathways. Results show that referred students are significantly less likely to plan for four-year college enrollment and more likely to pursue two-year colleges and workforce or vocational pathways, with disciplinary referrals yielding the lowest high school graduation rates.This research extends sociological theories of educational stratification by positioning alternative education referrals as a sorting mechanism that mirrors broader carceral processes. Like incarceration, alternative education referrals remove marginalized students from mainstream schools, affecting their academic trajectories and life course opportunities. By leveraging quantitative methods to complement prior qualitative scholarship, this dissertation provides a systematic analysis of alternative education’s role in shaping critical outcomes. Study findings underscore the need for policies that mitigate the adverse effects of alternative education placements and call into question the function of alternative education within public schools, particularly its role in reinforcing educational inequities.