Roughly 4,000 Washington kids were living in juvenile detention halls, long-term prisons or group homes during 2024, and the state was obligated to educate each one.
That duty is not merely legal. This state also has a financial responsibility to put as many youths as possible on track toward productive lives — or else pay for their likely incarceration as adults — a cost currently clocking in at $1 billion annually for the 13,000 people in our prisons.
Right now, however, only 25% of young people educated in Washington’s Juvenile Rehabilitation program or county detention halls graduate from high school, and 43% are convicted of new crimes within three years of release, according to data in a damning new state-commissioned report.
Such outcomes have been standard for decades. And every few years, lawmakers attempt to pass legislation aimed at improving them. The most recent effort was in 2023, when Rep. Lisa Callan, D-Issaquah, sponsored a bill requiring better assessment of incarcerated students’ education needs and more rigorous tracking of their results.
The law, which passed unanimously, also assigned state schools chief Chris Reykdal to oversee reforming K-12 in lockup.
That alone is a change since, traditionally, local districts have had jurisdiction. At the Echo Glen Children’s Center, for example, that’s the Issaquah School District. For kids held in King County Juvenile Detention, it’s Seattle Public Schools.
Meanwhile, Sen. Claire Wilson, chair of the Human Services Committee, is diving into fresh information about the education of 9,593 recently incarcerated kids to determine exactly who they are and what happened after their release.
The data is sobering, if not entirely shocking: More than 90% of youths enrolled in lockup school were low-income, and nearly half had been homeless at some point during childhood. Most had high rates of suspension and truancy before they were imprisoned.
In other words, school behind bars was merely the last stop on a long, rocky road. After leaving lockup, 44% eventually dropped out.
That is not a signal to give up. Quite the contrary.
Within this mostly dire report, there are hints pointing toward a path forward. For instance, kids held in small group homes — rather than the Echo Glen or Green Hill prisons — had higher graduation rates, future employment and college or trade school enrollment.
Specifically, the 334 young people who completed their sentences in community-based group homes graduated high school at twice the rate of kids in youth prisons. Nearly 60% of the group home residents also were employed within three years of finishing high school — a rate superior to those for young people in prisons or detention centers.
Boil it all down and that means hundreds of new taxpayers, which is significant in a state searching for every dime it can get.
