Chronic Absenteeism

This article explore the relationship between per pupil spending and learning, particularly in developing countries that spend much lower levels in education than do OECD countries. Their findings suggest that, when education systems spend above $8,000, the association between student learning and per student spending is no longer statistically significant. Therefore, they find a threshold effect after this level of resources is met, indicating a declining relationship between resources and achievement at high levels of expenditure (consistent with other recent literature). There is a positive relationship between student learning and per pupil expenditure among the low-spending countries (below $8,000 per student), but a flat relationship among high-spending countries. 

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.

This paper describes two models for understanding dropping out as a developmental process that may begin in the earliest grades.

This review of the research on secondary reading programs focuses on 69 studies that used random assignment (n=62) or high-quality quasi-experiments (n=7) to evaluate outcomes of 51 programs on widely accepted measures of reading.The study found programs using one-to-one and small-group tutoring (+0.14 to +0.28 effect size), cooperative learning (+0.10 effect size), whole-school approaches including organizational reforms such as teacher teams (+0.06 effect size), and writing-focused approaches (+0.13 effect size) showed positive outcomes. Individual approaches in a few other categories also showed positive impacts. The findings are important suggesting interventions for secondary readers to improve struggling student’s chances of experiencing greater success in high school and better opportunities after graduation.

One of the most critical issues facing K-12 education is the impact that poverty has on school performance.  This study first examines school performance using traditional metrics for school poverty levels (percent of student body that qualify for free and reduced lunch: FRL) and school performance (school achievement based on the aggregate test scores of its student body).  The results support prior research documenting the negative relationship between the level of poverty in a school and student achievement (the higher the poverty the lower the achievement).  However, when replacing the student achievement metric with a student growth metric, the relationship is significantly different.

The American Academy of Pediatrics just released a policy statement regarding the negative impact that chronic student absenteeism has on children’s health. They cite numerous ways the two are linked. 

Low ventilation rates (VRs) in schools have been associated with absenteeism, poorer academic performance, and teacher dissatisfaction. The steady-state, build-up, and decay methods had significant limitations and biases, showing the need to confirm that these methods are appropriate. Findings highlight the need to increase VRs and to ensure that energy saving and comfort measures do not compromise ventilation and IAQ.

This book examines research on the problem of student dropouts and standardized and high stakes testing. Information comes from papers presented at a 2000 workshop in which experts offered their diverse perspectives and technical expertise.

This study examines the detrimental impact of principal turnover, including lower teacher retention and lower student achievement. Particularly hard hit are high poverty schools, which often lose principals at a higher rate as they transition to lower poverty, higher student achievement schools.

This research took a more historical look, examining NAEP data over the past decade to find connection between standard-based reform and student outcomes. The findings suggest that there is clear evidence that standards-based reform works, particularly when it comes to the needs of low-income students. The Common Core is the most recent major policy initiative to advance the broader standards-based reform approach. States should continue their commitment to the Common Core’s full implementation and aligned assessments.

This paper examines the effects of school characteristics on both the probability of dropping out and the strongest predictor of dropping out-absenteeism.

This paper advances the discussion of the achievements differences between the higher and lower social-class groups were increasing, particularly between children in the highest income group and everyone else issue by analyzing trends in the influence of race/ethnicity, social class, and gender on students’ academic performance in the United States. This paper also explores the ways in which English language ability relates to Hispanics’ and Asian Americans’ academic performance over time (Nores and Barnett 2014). 

This report provides a practical “management guide,” for an evidence-based key indicator data decision system for school districts and schools.

The report provides recommendations and strategies for managing chronic absenteeism at all levels of education leadership, from state agencies through individual schools.  It also has an interactive web site where the reader can drill down on specific data at all levels of the education system.  www.attendanceworks.org

To answer questions about who goes to college, who persists toward a degree or credential, and what happens to students after they enroll, the National Center for Education Statistics launched three national longitudinal studies to track students movements into and through the postsecondary education system. These three surveys, the National Education Longitudinal Study, the Beginning Postsecondary Student Longitudinal Study, and the Baccalaureate and Beyond Study, provide findings about college access, student characteristics, and academic persistence. 

This report provides ten actions to get data into the right hands of educators.

This Digest examines some of the ways that truancy affects both individuals and society. It identifies factors that may place students at greater risk of becoming truant and lists some consequences of nonattendance, including delayed promotion and graduation, lowered self-esteem, and lessened employment potential.

This meta-analysis reviews 63 studies on the relationship between conditions of massed practice and spaced practice with respect to task performance, which yields an overall mean weighted effect size of 0.46.

Two analyses investigated the effects of choice making on the responding of elementary school students with emotional and behavioral challenges. 

The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine the impact of mindfulness training on students. Mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) are an increasingly popular way designed to improve the behavioral, cognitive and mental health outcomes of children. The researchers found a positive 0.19 effect size.  Outcome of Mindfulness for Executive Functioning, Attention, Depression, Anxiety/Stress and Negative Behaviors, identified effect sizes (Cohen’s d), ranging from .16 to .30.

In 2000, the National Reading Panel identified five practice elements with a sufficient evidence base to be deemed essential for mastery of reading (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). These elements consist of systematic teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, vocabulary, fluency, and exposure to reading comprehension strategies. This meta-analysis of 25 studies evaluates the impact of inference instruction in grades K-12. The study reported that inference instruction had an effect size d=0.58 on general comprehension and d= 0.68 on literal comprehension. These are “moderate to large” effects of instruction on general comprehension and to making inferences for both skilled and less skilled readers. The pattern differed for the literal measure, however, with skilled readers showing almost no gain but unskilled readers showing sizable gains. 

This investigation examines the aspect of the structural and regulatory environment of schools to identify features that are associated with higher levels of engagement among eighth-grade students at risk.

In the current context, barriers to student attendance and engagement have only increased. Schools and districts are encouraged to emphasize a supportive multi-tiered model for supporting student and staff engagement and attendance rather than punitive attendance or truancy policies.

This brief describes seven promising programs that have developed a coordinated response to reduce truancy and juvenile delinquency.

This study examines that assumption, asking the question:  how well do student grades correlate with test scores, school demographics, student performance on college entrance exams, and the historical difficulty for getting A’s (is it easier or harder to get A’s).  The study found that students who scored higher on end-of-course (EOC) examinations also had higher grades.  However having high grades did not correlate with doing well on the examination.  

The National Center on Education Statistics has released graduation rate data for the school year 2015-2016 (the most recent year in which data are available).  The graduation rate for this school year is 84% making it the highest level reported since all states began using a standard measure for reporting graduation rates in the 2010-2011 school year.  Not only is the overall graduation rate higher but there were improvements in each of the sub-groups as well.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of three active responding techniques (i.e., hand raising, choral responding, the response card) on student participation and ontask behavior in preschool children with attending problems. 

Alternate assessment and instruction is a key issue for individuals with disabilities. This report presents an analysis, by assessment system component, to identify where and when flexibility can be built into assessments.

This report uses a newly defined version of the Greene Method to calculate graduation rates for the public school class of 2000, comparing results to those of 1998.

This study examines whether the results of standardized tests are distorted when rewards and sanctions are attached to them.

There are both personal and societal costs of dropping out. 

This report and podcast examines the scientific basis for how to teach reading to children. This investigation reveals how children learn to read, emphasizing the five critical components of reading instruction. 

This report is the first chapter of the 2018 Brown Center Report on American Education. This section explore trends in math, reading, and civics performance from the late 1990s through the most recent year in which results are available (2017 in math and reading, 2014 in civics). It show trends in nationwide performance and in test score gaps by race (white-black), ethnicity (white-Hispanic), and family income (based on eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch [FRL]). In doing so, this report examine test score trajectories from the beginning to the end of the No Child Left Behind era (NCLB). The 2017 results, in particular, reflect a boundary in the timeline of education policy, demarcating the end of NCLB and the beginning of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The purpose of this study is to compare different statistical and methodological approaches to standard setting and determining cut scores using R- CBM and performance on high-stakes tests

The purpose of this article is to provide prospectus to the problem and develop key recommendations that may be utilized by urban districts to reduce its financial costs and to significantly improve staff and student attendance.

In this study, the authors examined whether students of different racial-ethnic groups vary in attachment and engagement and whether properties of schools (eg, racial-ethnic composition) influence these outcomes over
and above individual characteristics. 

This report examines 24 of the most effective and scalable interventions employed to remediate the impacts of chronic absenteeism.

PISA measures the performance of 15-year-old students in science, reading, and mathematics literacy every 3 years. PISA uses the term "literacy" in each subject area to indicate how well students are able to apply their knowledge and skills to problems in a real-life context.

This analysis examines the influence of poverty on student reading performance across grade levels.

his overview looks at the best available evidence on chronic student absenteeism in the context of the scale, the impact, impact multipliers, and interventions. 

Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is an intervention designed to improve students’ academic skills through a six-step process that teaches students specific academic strategies and self-regulation skills. The practice is especially appropriate for students with learning disabilities. Based on evidence from single-case design studies, SRSD had potentially positive effects on writing achievement for students with a specific learning disability.

This paper examines the relationship between the climate of teacher-student relations within a school and individual student's likelihood of freshman year success.  Results find that teacher-student climate does have a significant effect.

this paper investigated the relationship between student and teacher perceptions of the social environments of 19 high school classes and student absenteeism rates and the average final grades given by the teacher. 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a national assessment of what America's students know in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history.

Over the past twenty years many reading interventions have been proposed. One of these, “Book Flooding”, proposes that providing an enriched environment in which books are present and readily available can improve reading. Much of the research on this topic has focused on exposing children in the early grades to storybooks. Given the greater importance on reading complex text in meeting new reading standards, this study examines the impact of book flooding of books that stress academic words and technical terms. This quasi-experimental study examines the influence of a book distribution program targeted at enhancing children’s exposure to information books. The research examined whether a flood of information books in early childhood settings could affect growth in language, content-related vocabulary, and concepts of comprehending information text. The study concludes there were no significant effects on student outcomes and that book distribution programs on their own need to be reevaluated if they are to improved student reading performance.

This study examines the impact of Charter schools on college enrollment. The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) used college enrollment and completion data for students who (more than a decade ago) entered lotteries to be admitted to 31 charter middle schools across the United States.The results show that admission to a charter middle school did not affect college outcomes. Additionally, the study finds no consistent relationship between the impact a charter middle school achievement and the school’s impact on college outcomes.

The focus of the report is on the performance of U.S. students relative to their peers in other countries on TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced 2015, and, for TIMSS results, on changes in achievement since 2011 and 1995. This report also describes the characteristics of students who participated in the advanced mathematics and physics assessments at the end of high school, and describes the performance of males and females in these subjects. In addition, it includes achievement in Florida, and international benchmarks to provide a way to interpret the scale scores by describing the types of knowledge and skills students demonstrate at different levels along the TIMSS scale. 

The authors report a randomized field experiment (N = 15,329) that tests the impact of two types of symbolic awards on student attendance: preannounced awards (prospective) and surprise awards (retrospective).

This descriptive summary is one of the first reviews to examine the number of days of “lost instruction” resulting from student suspensions. The study examines the total number of days lost nationwide, disparities among different student subgroups, and differences across individual states. The impact of loss of instruction due to suspensions has a lifelong impact on students, including: lower graduation rates (Rumberger and Losen, 2017), increased involvement in the juvenile justice system (Mowicki, 2018), and arrests as adults Rosenbaum (2018).

This descriptive summary is one of the first reviews to examine the number of days of “lost instruction” resulting from student suspensions. The study examines the total number of days lost nationwide, disparities among different student subgroups, and differences across individual states. The impact of loss of instruction due to suspensions has a lifelong impact on students, including: lower graduation rates (Rumberger and Losen, 2017), increased involvement in the juvenile justice system (Mowicki, 2018), and arrests as adults Rosenbaum (2018).

This paper examines efforts in the State of Wisconsin to improve test scores.

A recent large-scale evaluation of Reading Recovery, a supplemental reading program for young struggling readers, supports previous research that found it to be effective.  In a 4 year, federally funded project, almost 3,500 students in 685 schools found that generally students benefitted from the intervention. Students receiving Reading Recovery receive supplemental services in a 1:1 instructional setting for 30 minutes 5 days a week from an instructor trained in Reading Recovery.  In the study reported here, students who received Reading Recovery had effect sizes of .35-.37 relative to a control group across a number of measures of reading.  These represent moderate effect sizes and account for about a 1.5 month increase in skill relative to the control group.  Even though the research supports the efficacy of the intervention, it also raises questions about its efficiency.  The schools that participated in the study served about 5 students and the estimated cost per student has ranged from $2,000-$5,000.  These data raise questions about the wisdom of spending this much money per student for growth of about a month and a half.

This paper outlines the consequences that these young people face after leaving high school. 

This meta-analysis examines the impact of 1^st tier reading instruction on reading outcomes for students in grades 4-12 in an Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) service delivery model. 37 studies met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The study finds small, but positive effects for 1^st tier reading instruction on comprehension, vocabulary, and indicates minimum evidence for struggling readers maintaining or improving reading comprehension over struggling students receiving typical instruction. Hedges’s g was used calculating effect sizes. Because of the limited number of studies examining phonics/word recognition and fluency instruction, it was not possible these critical instruction areas in this meta-analysis.

The purpose of this study is the examination of low-cost interventions to improve the performance of disadvantaged students. The intervention was designed to improve the performance of students by providing small-group tutoring sessions. The research found that children who received tutoring progressed more in math compared to children in control schools (effect size = +0.19). 

The final regulations establish a uniform and more accurate measure of calculating high school graduation rate that is comparable across states; strengthen public school choice and supplemental educational services requirements; and increase accountability and transparency.

The authors surveyed the U.S. public about test score gaps between students of different races and classes. They found much greater concern about wealth-based gaps than race-based gaps. A large portion of the American public remains generally unconcerned about test score gaps between white and minority children, and many Americans attribute the gaps that exist exclusively to minority parents and children rather than to broader social or historical causes.  In reality, we may need much broader changes in public attitudes toward educational inequities before we should expect policymakers to feel much pressure from the public to close today’s test score gaps.

This report summarizes performance on PIRLS and ePIRLS 2016 from a U.S. perspective. PIRLS results are based on nationally representative samples of fourth-graders. The international data reported for PIRLS 2016 in this report cover 58 countries or other education systems, including the United States.

Daniel Willingham and Gail Lovette's interpretation of the effect of comprehension instruction is that it signals to students the significance of inferential thinking. Willingham and Lovette conclude that practicing inferences does not lead to increases in general inferencing for the following reasons; inferencing depends on the particular text, and whatever cognitive processes contribute to inferencing are already well practiced in oral language as we are constantly drawing inferences in daily conversation.

This report examines students’ sense of belonging and participation at school, two of the most important measures of student engagement.

A 2015 paper by Stuart Yeh offers evidence on how to improve the performance of all students and close the achievement gap between students of different socioeconomic statuses and races. Yeh hypothesizes that the conventional school system is structured in a way that reduces student motivation to succeed. Students become disengaged after experiencing repeated failure, resulting in depressed achievement and grades. This cycle continues to feed on itself as low achievement and poor grades further decrease motivation, engagement, and achievement. Yeh’s research suggests that two critical factors may account for the phenomenon of substandard student achievement: lack of a system for individualizing task difficulty and insufficient rapid performance feedback. These factors appear to be significantly more powerful than sociocultural circumstances (socioeconomic status or race), lack of accountability, lack of choice and competition, and low teacher quality.