Increasing the dialogue among stakeholders in New Jersey’s special education system
  1. Seventy percent of children in the juvenile justice system have educational disabilities — the vast majority have emotional disabilities and/or Specific Learning Disabilities.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Children with emotional disabilities are three times more likely to be arrested before leaving school, when compared to all other students.
  5. For children with emotional disabilities who drop out of school, 73 percent are arrested within five years.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.