Student Absenteeism: Fixes and Frustrations

By DON ROLLINS

Public education in America is a complete travesty, so goes the tired and tiring narrative. Our young graduate from secondary school unprepared and uncompetitive, if they graduate at all. Standardized test scores are in irreversible free fall. Teachers don’t teach, administrators don’t administrate and parents don’t parent. And Wokist, revisionist liberals are out to mold public schools in their own godless image.

Bottom line, say the haters: Our public schools are broken beyond repair, and we need to stop wasting resources in a vain attempt to fix them.

Research supports some, but by no means all the faults laid at the feet of America’s K-12 system. While some key indicators are justifiably alarming and cry out for intervention — i.e. overall low test scores, fluctuating graduation rates, unsafe student behaviors and all-time high incidents of gun violence — the sky is not falling on every count, starting with slight upticks in math competency, reading skills and graduation rates for 2023. Such advances are modest and fragile, still they indicate resilience in the wake of a global pandemic that shuttered nearly every public school in the nation. We should give credit where credit is due.

But largely left out of simplistic arguments over the merits and minuses of today’s public schools is the corrosive phenomenon of chronic student absenteeism. The most recent federal data (2021-22) indicate nearly 15 million students exceeded their districts’ allotted excused days for that school year. That’s 29% of the total enrollment for the same period.

Black and Indigenous students were most likely to miss classes, as were Non-English learners, children from homes experiencing poverty, and those without stable food sources and housing. Likewise, students with identified mental health and or substance misuse challenges.

These findings suggest an educational landscape that looks a lot like the rest of socioeconomically and racially stratified America. The absenteeism demographics are nearly identical, with marginalization as the common denominator.

Woefully, these trends and statistics are yet to garner much attention where it matters most: Local school boards. This is at least in part because intransigent Republicans hold sway on thousands of local school boards across the nation - some by their own public admission influenced by conservative groupthink on everything from gender identity to textbook contents to critical race theory. It’s doubtful those boards will suddenly embrace systems thinking, adopt wholistic approaches, and connect the dots between chronic absenteeism and kids with no place to sleep.

Hard-right school boards are no doubt encouraged by the overwhelming support from rank-and-file Republicans in their districts. That certainty was born out in a 2023 poll done by Pew Center, in which 70% of their fellow Republicans registered no faith whatsoever in K-12 education, including student absence programs based on anything other than punitive measures for both kids and their caregivers. (Related, Texas leads the pack in this race to out punish the adults. That state’s truancy courts are empowered to fine, even jail offending caregivers for up to three days.)

The real pisser here is things don’t have to be this way. Chronic student absence has been studied here and abroad for the last two decades, yielding solid science on the importance of relationships among stakeholders (students, caregivers, educators, administrators, counselors, school boards, public assistance caseworkers) over criminalizing and weaponizing poor attendance. Instead of upping the severity of punishment for students missing the most time, models with the best outcomes divert more resources — more positive relationships — to those who struggle the hardest.

Progress is slow, even in the best performing settings. Yet the data are clear: Engaging children and youth with positive, sustained connections lowers absenteeism and dropout rates better than any other known approach.

The tools exist to lessen the impact of student absenteeism, and are getting better. But this a country besieged by insular conservatism at every turn. Relationship-based models are good for graduation rates, employability and crime statistics, but they’re a hard sell when the school board president’s car has a Trump 2024 sticker.

Despite the continuing plague of chronic student absence, K-12 education is not the irredeemable travesty of common lore. Far from perfect, our public schools are bent but not broken. As such, they deserve a better fate than as a catch-all for our withering political discord, or fair game for scorched earth Republicans eager to lay waste to one more institution worth the saving.

Postscript: There are a number of entities and resources dedicated to reducing chronic student absenteeism, some with hands-on strategies for change. A simple online search will yield lots of information and ideas.

Don Rollins is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2024

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