"Out of the Spotlight" Posting for July 9, 2010
In
our bid to close the academic achievement gap that separates low-income
children from their classmates, test scores are not the only numbers that
matter.
Increasingly
educators are looking at attendance, even in the early grades, as a key factor
in school success. And they’re crunching the data from the daily roll in
different ways to see who’s racking up absences—excused and unexcused—and for
how many days.
Like
so many other factors, school absences affect children in poverty
disproportionately: They are more likely to miss more days of school and more
likely to fall behind academically because of these absences. Analyzing the
data can help schools and community organizations pinpoint the children and
families in need of services, as well as identify systemic fixes.
Research
released in 2008 showed that one in 10 kindergarten and 1st grade students
misses the equivalent of a month of school every year. We don't call this
truancy, which typically only includes unexcused absences and undercounts when
children miss school but their parents call in an excuse. We call it chronic
absence.
The
research showed that chronically absent kids—those who miss 10 percent of the
year—in kindergarten perform poorly in 1st grade. For low-income children, who
have trouble making up the lost time, the poor performance persists through 5th
grade. By middle and high school, when chronic absence rates are sometimes two
to three times higher than in the elementary grades, absences become a key
predictor that a student will drop out of high school.
It's
tempting to lay this problem at the feet of parents, as many school districts
are doing. But poor families often lack reliable transportation, relocate frequently
and have little access to health care—all factors that contribute to chronic
absence.
Attendance Counts director Hedy
Chang recommends several concrete steps that schools, communities and policymakers
can take:
First,
they can track and analyze chronic absence data. Most schools take attendance
but only look at the aggregate numbers, not individual absences.
Once
the data is crunched, schools start to see patterns: absences concentrated in
neighborhoods without safe walking routes or with high incidence of asthma. A
school in Providence
found several absent students had parents who worked overnight shifts, then
fell asleep before bringing their kids to school.
The
patterns can help drive the responses: starting an early-morning program
earlier or opening a school health clinic for asthma sufferers. Some districts
assign mentors or bring in community providers to help families in need.
Policymakers on the state and federal level can help if they:
- Require schools to report on chronic absence rates, not just truancy
- Encourage states to add absence data to longitudinal data bases
- Make reducing chronic absence, not just improving test scores, an objective measure of school improvement.
This final point is particularly important as we seek to reform our schools. How can we measure whether improved curriculum and instruction are actually working to close the achievement gap unless we know whether these students are actually in the classroom?
Posted by Phyllis
____________________________________________________
Here at Out of the Spotlight, we offer a behind-the-scenes look at the latest news and information essential to anyone working to fight poverty. From key political appointees to clashes over policy, we cover the news that doesn’t always make the evening news. Check out Out of the Spotlight for our take on the twists and turns of the latest political developments and its impact on poverty reduction. Topics and ideas are welcome! Just contact mlaracy@aecf.org or watersboots@hotmail.com