Education Week, October 20, 2010

This week I would like to focus on the article "Early-Years Absenteeism Seen as Critical."  If you are not in school, you cannot learn. This sounds simple.  It seems like common sense.  And yet many students, according to the article,  are even chronically absent.  This is true both at the elementary and the secondary level.  On average, one in ten K-12 students nationwide misses 10 percent or more of school each year.  If the school year is 180 days, that is approximately 18 days of school!
     There seems to be a link between chronic absenteeism and poverty.  According to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, more than one in five Kindergartners living below the federal poverty line was chronically absent whereas only 8 % of students living above the poverty line were chronically absent.  The article alluded to many reasons that affect whether children come to school.  Some risk factors associated with living in poverty such as lack of mobility or transportation or an unstable home life seem to play a role.  Apparently high kindergarten absences are the norm nationwide, perhaps due to the fact that kindergarten attendance is not mandatory in many states.  Many parents also do not realize that Kindergarten today is much more academic.  Many children are learning to read in Kindergarten, for instance.
     Why does absenteeism in Kindergarten matter so much?  Research has shown that children who miss more than 10% of Kindergarten score much lower on reading, math, and general knowledge tests in first grade.  Chronic Kindergarten absences also predict continuing absences in later grades.
     New York City schools seem to be taking on this problem and trying to get to the bottom of it.  They are conducting assessments and interventions school by school.  One of the things that they have learned is that if a younger child is ill, often an older sibling will need to miss school and stay home to take care of him or her.  This is especially typical in families where both parents work.  In a school in Rhode Island, school officials researched what was going on with their chronically absent students and realized that many parents who worked the night shift could not stay awake until 9 a.m. to bring their children to school.  They started a morning program that allowed parents to bring their children at 7 a.m. and saw a dramatic decrease in absenteeism.  I am impressed by the creative solutions that school administrators have come up with to combat the problem of chronic absenteeism.  It seems smart to first assess what is going on in each school and then tailor the solutions to fit each local community.