Congress makes school attendance a national priority
(District of Columbia) Increasing the emphasis on getting more of the nation’s K-12 students to show up for class, the newly-approved federal education law will require Title I schools to report chronic absenteeism broken down by subgroup.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, signed by President Barack Obama last week, does away with the most onerous accountability mandate on schools – adequate yearly progress – while giving states new flexibility to design and implement their own systems for measuring student performance.
But Congress retained some key requirements such as annual assessments in grades three through eight and once in high school for math and English language arts, as well as the need to continue to identify persistently underperforming schools.
ESSA calls on states to create accountability systems that use multiple measures to gauge student outcome. The bill requires that states receiving Title I money must also collect and report “measures of school quality, climate and safety…”
Among the metrics listed that must be broken down by subgroup is chronic absenteeism – both excused and unexcused.
“It is good news that chronic absence data is included in the ESSA reauthorization for Title I schools because it moves us closer to the day when all districts will be using chronic absence data and acting on it,” said David Kopperud, an education programs consultant with the California Department of Education who helps oversee statewide attendance issues.
Long overlooked as a vehicle for improving public education, attendance is increasingly viewed as a fundamental first step in boosting student performance – especially among early learners.
According to a study from Johns Hopkins University, chronic absenteeism in kindergarten was associated with lower academic performance in first through third grade. Johns Hopkins researchers Congress makes school attendance a national priority :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:
