- Seventy percent of children in the juvenile justice system have educational disabilities — the vast majority have emotional disabilities and/or Specific Learning Disabilities.
- Children with emotional disabilities fail more courses, earn lower grade point averages, miss more days of school, and are retained more often than other students with disabilities.
- Children with emotional disabilities have the lowest graduation rates of all children with disabilities. Nationally, 35% graduate from high school compared to 76% for all students.
- Children with emotional disabilities are three times more likely to be arrested before leaving school, when compared to all other students.
- For children with emotional disabilities who drop out of school, 73 percent are arrested within five years.
- Children with emotional disabilities are twice as likely to live in a correctional facility, halfway house, drug treatment center, or “on the street” after leaving school, when compared to students with other disabilities.
- Girls with emotional disabilities are twice as likely to become teenage mothers as are students with other disabilities.
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center; To learn more, click here.
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