The "Pushouts": Academic Skills and Learning Disabilities in Continuation High School Students

Abstract

Although students from California high schools are sent to continuation schools primarily because of attendance and behavior problems, assessment measures suggest the presence of a number of unidentified learning disabled students in those schools. Tests results from the Wide Range Achievement Test and the Diagnostic Analysis of Reading Errors suggest that many of these students would meet the criteria for identification as learning disabled. Although staff at these schools tend to deny that they work with "handicapped" students, continuation schools in fact appear to use a number of procedures associated with effective learning disability instruction.