The following is a transcript of a report by Team 4's Jim Parsons that first aired May 12, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Did you ever wonder what happens to high school students who get removed from school because they have disruptive behavior?

Some of them drop out, but many more get what is called an "alternative education."

A Team 4 hidden camera investigation exposed a system that allows disruptive students to get the same diploma as other children, even though they only have to put in half the number of hours, and you're paying for it.

The investigation started with a tip from a viewer who complained that the students are being rewarded for misbehaving.

Many of the schools they attend are run by private non-profits that are not required to have certified teachers. The students only have to spend 15 hours a week in the classroom, which is about half as much as regular students.

And when it's time to graduate, they get a diploma from their home high school, just like other students.

On three different weekday mornings, Team 4 watched the door at Phase 4 Learning Center inside Century III Mall.

School starts at 8 a.m., but by 8:30 a.m., Team 4's Jim Parsons saw what the tipster was talking about.

Students were leaving Phase 4, walking into the mall and hanging out in the parking lot to smoke.

One young couple left the school at 9:30 a.m., spending the next hour walking through the mall and shopping for basketball shoes.

After making a purchase, they returned to the school at 10:30 a.m., but only for a moment. They waved to someone inside, then walked out of the mall and kept on going.

Team 4 watched another student leave school at 10 a.m. and walk around the mall for over an hour. He bought a pair of pants before returning to Phase 4 at 11 a.m.

Half an hour later, he was hanging out in the mall doorway showing his new pants to some friends.

Parsons also watched students leave the mall altogether. They got into their cars and drove away less than three hours after school started.

Besides mall school students, the other group of people hanging out in the food court at 9:30 a.m. was retirees like Jack Kern. He's there every morning and said he can't help notice the kids.

"Are they in school or aren't they?" Kern asked. "I don't think they're getting too much of an education, because they're mostly walking around the mall or on the outside."

Phase 4 CEO Terry Suica Reed said her students are working at it.

"It's very flexible, but they're putting in their required time," said Reed.

Reed founded Phase 4 in 2003. She contracts with 15 school districts to educate their disruptive students at a tuition rate of $5,000 per child.

"Just because it's different doesn't mean it's less," she said. "That just means it's done differently."

"But the requirement is less," Parsons responded. "There's not a requirement to do as many hours and yet they get the same diploma."

"Well, they do earn the same diploma," said Reed.

"This school is really helping me get my diploma, because at regular school, I'd still be in ninth grade," said 18-year-old Steve Holmes.

State Rep. Chelsa Wagner is a member of the House Education Committee. As a result of Team 4's investigation, she learned that the state has no idea how disruptive students are doing at privately run programs.

"The underlying question is whether or not anything is behind their diploma," she said. "We have no way of knowing that any individual student is getting the education, that there is no performance measures for an individual student or private provider."

Team 4 discovered that the state Education Department does not track PSSA assessment scores for students at privately run alternative schools, and state inspectors rarely visit the facilities themselves. In fact, they've never inspected Phase 4 or a nearby competitor, CIS academy.

"It doesn't make sense," said Wagner.

Parsons: "So, who is responsible for this? Who thought it was a good idea to let kids who are so disruptive they get thrown out of high school to then go to school part time and get the same diploma as other kids? Who's responsible?"

Your elected leaders in Harrisburg are responsible.

Mary Ramirez oversees alternative education programs for the state Education Department, where the motto says every student should be proficient or advanced in the core subjects.

"We inherited this program from the previous administration," she said. "Are these kids getting equal access to the same education that kids in a regular school are getting? Well, again, this comes back to the monitoring and the review that is being done by the school district."

Team 4 requested interviews with two school districts that send the highest number of students to Phase 4 Learning Center. Superintendents at West Mifflin and Elizabeth Forward school districts turned us down.

The Pennsylvania ACLU has received complaints from parents and educators that some school districts are using alternative education programs as dumping grounds for disruptive students.

"This is an issue that we in fact are looking at right now," said Pennsylvania's ACLU director, Vic Walczak. "It's really not the functional equivalent of going to a regular school. There has to be some significant opportunity for due process to test that, because under Pennsylvania Constitution, you have a right to a public education."

Like other privately run alternative education programs, Phase 4 does not have to employ certified teachers, though some staff members are certified. That means the requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act don't apply there or at CIS Academy, which is an alternative school in Southland Shopping Plaza, where students attend classes just two and a half days a week.

Like Phase 4, Team 4 also saw students taking long breaks from school and wandering through the plaza.

"It makes you wonder how you can stand that diploma next to another student's when we really don't know," said Wagner.

Wagner said Team 4's investigation has opened her eyes on this issue and she'll be asking the House Education Committee to look at the law on alternative education.

In the meantime, after Team 4 started asking questions, the state Education Department said it would increase the number of hours students must spend in the classroom at alternative education programs next year. They will raise it from 15 to 20 hours.

So, what are some of the reasons students get sent to the school? It can be anything from disrespect for authority, violent behavior, chronic truancy or expulsion. Students are only supposed to go to alternative school temporarily, but Team 4 found many of them just stay there.

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