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Deconstructing The Marginalization Of “Underclass” Students: Disciplinary Alternative Education, I. India Geronimo

I. India Geronimo

Disciplinary alternative education programs have the potential to marginalize students by separating and permanently tracking them out of the mainstream school system into an underclass of the educational community. The students who are funneled into alternative education programs are often those students who are perceived to be undesirable and low-achieving. Marginalizing these students is attractive because it: 1) is an immediate method for relieving school administrator fatigue; 2) it is an extension of the zero tolerance and punitive approach that has plagued the criminal justice system and is a politically attractive manner for administrators and politicians to appear “tough on …