WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Chronic absenteeism: not your father’s hooky

How time flies.  Seems like only yesterday, but it’s been a few weeks since the last time we ran across a major study that confirmed what House Democrats have long maintained:  Funding education, by itself, is a good thing, but without sufficient attention to social programs, many of those education dollars will be unproductive at best.

 Now this: Johns Hopkins University education researchers Robert Balfanz and Vaughan Byrnes studied the relationships between poverty and chronic absenteeism, and between chronic absenteeism and success, or lack of it, in school and in life.  What they discovered won’t surprise anyone who isn’t heavily invested in the fund-education-first mantra.

Chronic absence (defined as missing at least 10 percent of school days in a school year) is widespread, but it’s more common among poor and/or rural students; and while it has a detrimental effect across the board, kids living in poverty have far more trouble catching up.

Quoting briefly from the study:

  • “In a nationally representative data set, chronic absence in kindergarten was associated with lower academic performance in first grade. The impact is twice as great for students from low-income families.
  • “A Baltimore study found a strong relationship between sixth-grade attendance and the percentage of students graduating on time or within a year of their expected high school graduation.
  • “Chronic absenteeism increases achievement gaps at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
  • “Because students reared in poverty benefit the most from being in school, one of the most effective strategies for providing pathways out of poverty is to do what it takes to get these students in school every day. This alone, even without improvements in the American education system, will drive up achievement, high school graduation, and college attainment rates.”

That’s a tall order.  Parents, educators, lawmakers, and students themselves, will disagree over just what would be required to “get these students in school every day.”  But, it’s clear that simply satisfying the state Supreme Court is only one part of a thorny puzzle.