The Development and Evaluation of an Educational Placement Screener for Youths in Pretrial Detention

This report provides an overview of the development and preliminary evaluation of an educational placement screener for use in short-term juvenile detention facilities. The screener is designed to gauge levels of competence in reading (at the word and text level) and mathematics for juveniles in grades 3–12, and to serve as a rapid assessment device for subsequent educational placement within 48 h of admission. The psychometric properties of the screener were evaluated in a sample of 1,078 youths in detention and 157 youths in the community. The importance of the availability of easy-to-administer assessment devices that can accurately capture the level of academic functioning of youths in detention is discussed within the larger context of meeting the educational rights and needs of juvenile delinquents.