Alternative Schools

Alternative education has been an integral part of public education in the United States since the 1830s; however, alternative education became a widespread movement across the country during the 1960s to 1970s. Fueled by the social discontent of the populace and the marginalization of many of U.S. youth, advocates of alternatives to the traditional public school structure became more vocal and more socially and politically active. Today, alternative education and alternative schools are a significant part of public education.

Much of the philosophy behind alternative education can be traced back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau who believed education should parallel a child's growth not society's need, and to the progressive era of education where people like John Dewey and Francis Parker thought children's education should serve their needs and interests and focus on understanding, action, and experience rather than on rote memorization and accumulation of factual knowledge.

The purpose of public alternative education/schools is to provide different approaches to teaching and learning that enhance the opportunities to learn for students who do not function well in the “state approved” programs found in the traditional public schools. The ideals of public alternative schools include diversity, autonomy, and providing school choice.

In 1970, Charles Silberman published Crisis in the Classroom, based on a Carnegie-funded study of U.S. education. This book substantiated the growing discontent of parents and educators with the status of public education in the 1960s and stimulated the support for public alternative schools. Silberman's focus for reform was to make schools more humane with more attention on students' interests, desires, and concerns.

By the early 1970s, the federal government became more involved in developing public alternative education programs. In 1970, the White House Conference on Children called for massive funding for the development of alternative forms of public education. Title III funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 were used to establish public alternative schools. The Experimental Schools Program (ESP) sponsored by the Office of Education was a huge effort to develop public alternative schools. Eight planning grants were approved; the three largest were for the Berkeley, California, Schools; Minneapolis Schools; and Seattle-Tacoma Schools. The Educational Alternatives Project (EAP) at Indiana University held a series of meetings and conferences on the development of alternative education programs. The initiative had three thrusts: (1) encouraging major professional organizations to include alternative public schooling in their national programs, to publish articles in their professional journals, to encourage private foundations to support public alternative education, and to organize conferences on public alternative education; (2) the development of the Alternative School Teacher Education Program, a graduate program that placed students in public alternative schools for their internships; (3) the creation of the International Consortium on Options in Public Education (ICOPE), which published the newsletter, Changing Schools, that shared information on public alternative schools, conferences on [Page 26]public alternative education, and reviewed books, program descriptions, and research reports on public alternative education programs and initiatives.

Also during the early 1970s, various state departments of education supported the development of public education alternatives. Most of these programs were compensatory in nature and strongly supported by businesses, state governments, and federal agencies. By 1973, 30 states offered some form of public alternative education programs or schools.

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