Alternative Education Alternative education caters to multifarious groups of students or unprofessional classified according to their needs and circumstances in life. Alternative education programs were designed because of pressures from concerned parents, teachers, students and government officials to ameliorate substandard education and dangerous environment in most public schools. Seeing its benefits, educators and educational institutions broaden the scope of this alternative to promote education and extend it to working adults to further their training and professionalism. Its main goal is to provide opportunities for millions of students, achievers or not, across the United States to maximize their potential for success. First, and on a more positive note, Unger (1998) claims that alternative education offers practical instruction that will convert the "basic skills, talents and interests" (p.10) of those individuals who opted not to pursue a college degree, but undertake vocational courses, career education workshops, and on-the-job training instead. Professions that developed out of the latter's nature include computer operators, chefs, plumbers, air traffic controllers, postal workers, actors, mechanics, barbers, and the like. It is noted that several of this occupations bring in more income than some jobs earned from a four-year course in a college or a university where the cost of learning is far more expensive (Unger, 1998). Second, and what usually brings a negative connotation to the term alternative education, is that type of education and schooling that caters to at-risk and developmentally handicapped students enrolled in a regular school system or setting. At-risk student populace consists of dropouts, drug and alcohol dependents, truants, troubled children, and those with behavior problems. Alternative education programs seek to aid the needs and interests of these students by offering positive school
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