"It's a huge transition. They come in at 14 and they leave as adults."

Ninth Grade-Our Last Chance

I learned from experience that a successful ninth grade experience predicted future high school success. Conversely, I learned that when students struggled in ninth grade, they rarely graduated. 

According to a recent report from the Nation­al High School Center, "the freshman year of high school is the “make or break” year that deter­mines whether a student will graduate. Course performance and attendance dur­ing freshman year are among the “most power­ful predictors” of student success, according to Developing Early Warning Systems to Identify Potential High School Dropouts.

Previous research has indicated that the big­gest risk factor for failing ninth grade is a student’s absenteeism during the first 30 days of high school.

In addition, in 2005, the Consortium on Chi­cago School Research released the “on-track indi­cator” that combined two correlated risk factors that helped predict with a high degree of accura­cy whether a student will drop out: course credits earned and course grades during freshman year."

Ninth grade has been referred to as a "make or break" year and a "rite of passage." Regardless of what we call ninth grade, it should be a focus of our efforts to improve student performance and increase graduation rates.

According to this report, ninth graders must face the following:

Overwhelmed - Most new ninth graders are unprepared for the sheer size of the of the high school compared to their middle school.

Bottom of the Food Chain - Another shock! Last year they were on top.

Navigating a larger campus

Changing classes

Facing more difficult course work - Their increase in difficulty of their new textbooks is even greater than the jump from high school to college.

Fitting in among older students - Many of the students are legally adults.

Hazing - "Fear of being tormented by older, bigger students" on "Freshman Friday."

"Fear of Abuse" - Fear of abuse goes beyond Freshman Friday. "Kids I see are really afraid of the gangs in school." "Some ... have changed schools because of this fear."

"Strict teachers" - "Get on your teacher's good side. A lot of high school teachers are a lot more strict. You don't want to be on their bad side the first week of school."

Questions

Do you know your at-risk ninth graders?

Are you going to wait for new ninth graders to emerge with problems, or are you going to get out in front of them?

My Tweet

9th Grade: "Nerve-wracking rite of passage" on 1st day of high school. sacbee.com  http://t.co/vOlR7lN

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:27 AM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

In a recent post, Mel Riddile highlighted several of the shortcomings associated with the latest method for determining graduation rates mandated by the U.S. Department of Education.  While the goal of this policy is worthy—standardizing the calculations throughout the nation—the resulting process is flawed, unfair and ultimately inaccurate.  The two key problems are an arbitrary time frame and an unrealistic as well as potentially punitive accounting for transfer students. 

Simple does not equal accurate

The ultimate goal of a graduation rate should be to measure a school’s effectiveness in producing successful students.  One of the reasons why the accuracy of this statistic has been so elusive is that it depends on so many variables.   In attempting to simplify the process, the Department of Education has built a method of measurement that will make for easy computations but misleading results.  What this overhaul ignores is that schools with high rates of poverty, mobility and ELL populations will be evaluated on information that does not truly reflect the academic performance occurring in their building. Dr. Riddile explained the problems with this new system from the perspective of a principal.  Here are three stories to illustrate the view from inside the classroom.

Easy come, easy go

In schools with high mobility the percentage of students who spend their entire academic careers at the same location can be surprisingly small.  My former school had an annual mobility rate of about 30% meaning that approximately one of every three students left during a typical year.  But during that time the size of the student body was extremely stable.   With remarkable consistency virtually every individual who moved to a new district or returned to their home country would be offset by someone coming in the opposite direction.  I once taught an introductory ELL course, Individual Math 1, which began the year with 24 students and finished with the same number.  Only one-half of those students were enrolled for the entire course.  This level of movement is not a reflection of the quality of education being provided; rather, it reveals the nature of the student body.  Consequently, under the new Department of Education guidelines while the actual instruction in that classroom may have been excellent, the dropout rate of these ninth-graders bordered on 50%.   Clearly labeling unverified transfer students as dropouts places an unfair burden on such schools.   The alternative, precise tracking of all of these individuals as mandated by this plan, would be far too costly in terms of time and energy. 

A tale of two graduates

Maria was in my Algebra 1 class.  She was smart, hardworking, reliable and the mother of a one-year old son.  Her boyfriend (soon to be her husband) and the baby lived with her family while she completed high school.  During her freshman year she made a detour to give birth but when she returned the next year there was no request for special treatment.  She passed my class and all of her other classes.   After five years at the school marched across the stage at graduation.  When I last heard from her she was an assistant manager at a bank.  While the data may label her as a drop-out, I can promise you she was not.

Michelle, my second example, was a quiet and petite member of my Pre-calculus class.   A refugee from Viet Nam she did not look like a 22-year-old.   But the path to her senior year of high school was very different than most.  What should have been her middle school years were spent either on a boat or in a prisoner of war camp.  When she finally arrived in this country she had the life experiences of an adult and the education of a child.  As a 17-year-old “freshman” she had to overcome language and emotional difficulties few others could even imagine.  Despite these immense challenges she succeeded in a college preparatory curriculum to earn a diploma as she approached her 23^rd birthday.  Though her story was far from traditional it deserved positive recognition by any legitimate measure.

Numbers cannot measure everything

As a mathematician, I would love to be able to state that every human endeavor can be measured quantitatively.  Unfortunately such precision is not always possible.  Even baseball, the most data driven sport on the planet, cannot evaluate simply on numbers. Every pitch, every swing of the bat, every spit is recorded, calculated and documented.  But despite this wealth of statistical data there are players in baseball who need to be seen to be appreciated.  There are no precise metrics to measure breaking up a double play, diving to catch balls, sprinting on every play or simply being unselfish. 

Formulating a simple yet accurate device for determining high school graduation rates is equally difficult.  What many of the educational policy makers may not understand is that the diversity of a student body is not just about ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status.  It also includes both the time required to graduate and the stability of their residency.  This most recent attempt by the Department Education is clearly not the answer. 

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:25 AM | Permalink

This week I am blogging from the NASSP Conference in San Francisco.

I used to say, "show me the data." However, it has gotten to the point that I no longer need to look at a school's data to know that a school is thriving or struggling. I can simply listen to what the staff of the school talks about. High-performing schools talk about students and how they are meeting their needs. Struggling schools talk about adult wants and adult needs.

Student-Focused

After attending three School Showcase presentations this morning it became crystal clear to me that schools serving large numbers under-resourced students must have a student-focused obsession, and that obsession must relate to the specific needs of the population that the school serves.

The three schools all served under-resourced students. However, the three high schools varied in size, had very different demographics, and were located in states with very different economics and education policies. The context in which these schools operated was about as different as they could possibly be.

Although they were very different in appearance, the three schools had a lot in common. They each had a laser-like focus on student success that bordered on an obsession. In fact, these three schools were so obsessed with student success that they were willing to overcome any obstacle that got in their way.

Literacy: Brockton High School (MA) is a large (4,350) urban high school that has focused on raising the literacy--reading, writing, thinking, discussing--levels of ALL students, particularly its large ELL population. Principal, Susan Szachowicz, and a "handful of fellow teachers" organized a school wide campaign that brought reading and writing lessons into every class in all subjects, including gym. According to a New York Times article, Brockton's literacy-for-all success has defied the "small is better orthodoxy" proving that any school can beat the odds and raise student performance.

Attendance: The audience turned to each other with looks of disbelief when the staff of Arroyo High School (CA) posted their three-year attendance figures. Arroyo's average daily attendance was well over 96%. For a large, high-poverty, high minority, urban high school, 96% is phenomenal. However, I could see the enthusiasm abate as the staff spent about twenty minutes describing all the initiatives the school used to improve attendance. As I have emphasized over and over again, improving student attendance is all about hard work and will power, and the Arroyo staff have plenty of both. Arroyo's success formula is simple. Get the students to attend school every day and make sure that the students succeed.

Course Failure: The presentation began with a simple but very effective slide that pointed out that, over a three-year period, Barberton (OH) High School had reduced course failures from over 2,500 to 350. The staff at Barberton must have read Bob Balfanz's dropout research that points out that course failure is one of the best indicators of dropping out of school. Admittedly, a school could reduce failures by simply lowering standards. This was not the case at Barberton, where the focus was clear and no obstacle too big to overcome. The staff used small learning communities, flexible scheduling, a unique master schedule, student-led conferences, and an advisory program among other strategies to significantly improve student performance.

The Bottom Line

These three schools demonstrate that there are no quick fixes. Even though these schools shared a student-focused obsession it took years of hard work, dedication, determination, and sheer will power to realize success. However, their obvious pride and sense of accomplishment make it obvious that the effort was all worth it.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:30 PM | Permalink

"Truancy is a nationwide epidemic and the old tools don't work."--Travis Knox, President of AIM Truancy Solutions

Desperate to improve student attendance, schools are now using GPS devices to track truant students. According to a recent report schools in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Kentucky, Kansas and California "have resorted to fitting students with hand-held GPS devices the size of a cellphone." Parents must voluntarily agree to have their child receive a phone call each morning reminding them to go to school on time. In addition, the student is required to enter a code to track their location five times each day.

Early reactions indicate that the program is having a positive effect. With a few exceptions parents agreed to allow their child to participate.

Miss school and you miss out. That was the message that we continually conveyed to our students. Turning around a low-performing school or improving the performance of under-resourced students often means improving student attendance and reducing truancy.

When we began our effort years ago, our average student missed over nineteen days of school each year. We knew that, unless we could improve attendance, we would have little chance of raising student performance.

There is no simple solution to improving attendance. It takes a lot of hard work. Improving attendance can only be done one student at a time and it means doing everything possible to encourage students to attend regularly.

Wake-up calls mean we care

Years ago our school began using a hand-me-down roto-dialer to make daily wake-up calls to our most frequently absent students. Like those in the aforementioned pilot programs, we found little parent resistance. In fact, we had parents of students with good attendance request that their child be put on the call list, because they left early for work and they wanted to make certain that their child arrived at school on time.

Shortly after the program began, a student walked up to me and said, "At first, I didn't like getting the calls, but I am a senior and this is the first time that I felt like the school actually wanted me to be here every day.

Surveys of school dropouts cite the most frequently given reason for dropping out was that no one at the school cared if they attended.

Persistence Pays Off

Wake-up calls were only one part of our efforts to improve student attendance. We learned that our students would regularly attend a safe, orderly, clean, and inviting school, particularly if the students felt that the teachers sincerely wanted them to succeed.

We also learned that the best way to change student behavior was to change our own behavior. Doing the same things the same way would not make the school more inviting. We had to do a lot of soul-searching. We had to change our expectations, and make some painful changes in our grading and homework policies.

Everyone in the school played a key part. Through the tireless efforts of the staff we were able to reduce the annual absence rate from nineteen days per student to less than eight days per student.

Schools Need Support

The challenges faced by schools in their attempt to encourage regular student attendance clearly points out the flaws in our accountability system. Schools, teachers, and principals are held personally accountable for student performance when they have no influence or control over attendance laws or their enforcement. In far too many instances, enforcement of attendance laws is non-existent. Students literally show up when they feel like it.

In the same way, schools in many states rely totally on the good will of their students to put forth their best effort on state assessments because their is absolutely no consequence for students who do poorly. Students can literally "Christmas-tree" a state assessment and nothing happens.

The careers of teachers and administrators as well as the reputation of the school and the school district depended on the good will of the students. If they don't feel like taking the test, there is no consequence.

From experience I have learned that unless everyone—students, teachers, administrators, schools, and school districts-- is held accountable for student performance, there is not true accountability. Unless everyone is working together toward a common goal, we have no accountability system. Instead, we have a system that scapegoats those who work in schools.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 07:37 PM | Permalink

In difficult economic times the poorest and under-resourced schools and students suffer the most. A new report on workforce employment tells us what many high school teachers and principals already know--there are few jobs for our students.

The report points out that the number of people 55 and older holding jobs is on track to hit a record 28 million in 2010 while young people increasingly are squeezed out of the labor market, a USA TODAY analysis finds. The portion of people ages 16-24 in the labor market is at the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, falling from 66% in 2000 to 55% this year. There are 17 million in that age group who are employed, the fewest since 1971 when the population was much smaller.

Impact on Schools

CTE and work-study programs have been struggling to find employment opportunities for students. Many of our students need to work to help support their families. The lack of jobs puts more pressure on the students and their families, which makes this time of the year even more challenging for teachers, counselors, and school leaders.

The Bottom Line

In difficult times our neediest students need us the most. They rely on us to provide a clean, safe, orderly, and inviting school environment. They count on us to do whatever it takes.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:43 AM | Permalink

Just before I went on stage to deliver a keynote speech on dropout prevention before over a thousand people, my host grabbed my arm and said, "See that large man in the front row? He controls the finances in the state legislature and he is very interested in what you have to say." I looked at him and said, "Thanks for not putting any pressure on me."

I began my speech by saying "Our school operated on a simple premise. Treat other peoples' children the way that you would want your own child treated. If every school believed that, we wouldn't be here today talking about dropout prevention." At that, the man in the front row stood up and began to applaud. I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

I always believed that many of our challenges in education could be corrected if we would simply treat other peoples' children as though they were our own. I would want my child in a small classroom with an excellent teacher. I would want my child to receive personal attention from the teacher. I would want my child to receive additional assistance should she fall behind. I would want my child to have an individual learning plan customized to her unique talents and interests. Our school accomplished many things for many students because we walked the talk.

Unfortunately, too many influential people refuse to walk their talk. They are locked into a do as I say not as I do mode. They talk about public education and the benefits of diversity and send their own children to elite private schools. They tell us that large class sizes and teacher pay don't impact student performance. According to Bruce Baker in School Finance 101 "private independent schools in particular, systematically outspend public schools in the same labor market by about 2/1" and their main point of differentiation is, you guessed it, small class sizes. In other words, small classes and high teacher pay for my child, large classes and low teacher pay for your child.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:25 AM | Permalink

In a recent post, The Teacher Leader pointed out “Successful teaching cannot begin until students are regularly attending class." Student attendance is not something any school leader wants to talk about, but it is a topic that we must address. Because time-on-task and direct, explicit instruction correlate highly with achievement, the first responsibility of every instructional leader is to ensure that our students actually show up every day.

Upon arriving at my new school, I proceeded to ask our teachers a simple question. What do we need to do in order to improve? I will always remember what our Science Department Chair, Sherry Singer, said to me. “Mel, our students don’t come to school, and, when they do, they can’t read.”

It was from that simple question and Sherry’s straightforward response that our decade-long school journey began. We believed that turning around our school hinged on attendance and strong literacy skills, it was on those two focal points, attendance and literacy, that we formed our “R-A-G-S to riches” school improvement plan—Reading plus Attendance will result in better Grades and a Safe school.

This month's issue of Education Next featured an article entitled Truants: The Challenges of Keeping Kids in School. The article made a number of salient points about attendance and truancy:

• There is a direct line from truancy to dropping out of school, juvenile crime, gang membership, drug use, teen pregnancy, poor health, receiving public assistance, and a whole host of negative behaviors.
• Schools are losing huge amounts of state funding due to poor student attendance.
• California - Reports that 24% of its 6.2 million students are considered truants.
• Wisconsin - 15.4% of students are truants. 62 percent of African American students were identified as truant.
• New York City reports that 24% of the high school students are truants.
• Washington, D.C. has a 20% truancy rate in which students were absent for 15 days or more without an excuse. D.C. spent $11 million on no-shows.
• Los Angeles posts a 16% truancy rate, which translates into a loss of 130,000 student days of state funding.
• Gender - Truancy is divided equally between boys and girls.
• Family - 50% live in single-parent households.
• Poverty - One-third live in poverty.
• Truancy laws are generally target parents and enforcement is "typically lax."
• Context Affects Attendance - A lack of food, unemployment, a lack of parental education, and parents in poor health all negatively impact attendance.

School staffers, social workers, prosecutors, and police officers repeatedly asserted that "Truancy is never the problem, it is the symptom."

Taking Action to Improve Attendance

• Students who miss school miss out.
• Improving attendance is hard work. It is more about will and determination than it is about technique. We must do everything in our power to encourage students to attend school. Our attendance rate started at a low 89% and, within two years, we improved to 96%. Going from 19 days of absence per student to 7.5 days per student added over two weeks of school of instrution without costing us a dime.
• Attendance is a prime early warning indicator of dropping out. "Information about absences may be the most practical indicator for identifying students in need of early interventions (Allensworth & Easton, 2007)."
• Students with a 10% or more absence rate have less than a 20% chance of graduating. Keep an updated list of students with attendance problems, set up parent conferences and, most importantly, insist that parents attend.
• Establish interventions for rising 9th graders. Don't wait for the problem to emerge. It will be too late.
• Students will attend school when they feel wanted. Make "wake-up" calls. Use technology to call the homes of students who are habitually late to school.
• Students will attend if they feel invited. In fact, the number one reason dropouts cite for leaving school is that no one cared if they were there. Let your students know that you want them in school every day.
• Students will attend school when they believe that they can succeed and that the staff is committed to their success. Set up a system of tiered interventions that ensure that students are never allowed to fall behind. Your students should say, "In this school it is hard to fail. The teachers won't let you fail. They never give up on you."

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:23 PM | Permalink

According to a report issued today by America's Promise Alliance, over the last decade, the nation's high schools have made significant progress in reducing dropouts and improving graduation rates. The report is part of "Grad Nation," which is part of a comprehensive, "10-year campaign to mobilize the nation as never before to reverse the dropout crisis and enable our children to be prepared for success in college, work and life."

Here are some of the highlights from Building A Grad Nation:

• The national graduation rate improved from 72% to 75%.
• 29 states demonstrated significant gains.
• Vermont and Wisconsin were the first states to reach a 90% graduation rate.
• Graduation rates for minority students--African American, Hispanic, Native American--improved the most.
• There are 261 fewer dropout factories (high schools with promoting power of 60% or less).
• 400,000 fewer students attend dropout factories.
• 25 of the 100 largest school districts had a 10% or greater increase in graduation rate.
• 12 states raised the compulsory school age.
• 47 states now have longitudinal data systems that will monitor students over time.
• 3 states have early warning systems.

Bottom Line

School leaders and teachers are to be congratulated for our efforts in turning the corner on the dropout crisis. However, we need to be aware that expectations are rising and the bar has been raised. The federal government now requires states to use the standard four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate that reflects the number of students who receive a diploma four years after they begin high school. I will have more to come on graduation rates and accountability as well as "early warning indicators."

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:52 AM | Permalink

According to a recent report, the U.S. Department of Education is relying on a revitalized high school graduation initiative, and "betting nearly $50 million that it can help states and school districts find better ways to hang onto students who might drop out and bring back those who have disappeared without diplomas."

Key elements of the dropout prevention initiatives include:

• monitoring of student attendance
• monitoring student behavior
• building “early warning systems” that alert middle level and high schools to the need for early intervention.
• targeting students in need instead of demographic targeting
• emphasis on early intervention at the middle level
• addressing social-emotional needs of students
• bringing back recent dropouts
• identifying social service partners in the community

Early Warning Signs

• 10% or greater absenteeism
• failing a core course the previous year
• a grade-point average below 2.0
• one or more suspensions
• history of discipline problems
• reading in the bottom quartile
• retention at any grade level

Bottom Line

"A marginal middle school student will fail in high school."

School leaders don't have to wait for a federal grant. We know the warning signs and we have the data already available to us. Upon learning the warning signs, one principal immediately identified over 60 high-risk students who would be entering the ninth grade this year. Instead of waiting for those students to re-emerge later in the school year, the principal developed a plan to meet with those students on the first day of school and to provide continuous contact and support for them from day one.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:07 AM | Permalink

“Successful teaching cannot begin until students are regularly attending class.”—The Teacher Leader

Student attendance is the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room when it comes to discussions of school improvement. How can teachers be held accountable for student achievement when students have poor attendance? How can school and principals be held accountable for student achievement when states allow students to quit school at age 16 and/or have weak attendance laws? How can schools be held accountable for student achievement when law enforcement agencies or the courts reluctant to enforce existing attendance laws? Finally, how can schools be held accountable for student performance when they have no resources like school attendance officers to assist in improving attendance.

Upon arriving at my new school, I proceeded to ask our teachers a simple Peter Drucker question. What do we need to do in order to improve? Although simple in structure, this question contains some critical underlying presuppositions. First, we believed that our students were capable of learning at much higher levels. Second, our school needs to improve. Third, our school can improve. Finally, our school will improve.

When I asked the question, I had a number of teachers give me similar answers, but I will always remember what our Science Department Chair, Sherry Singer, said to me. “Mel, our students don’t come to school, and, when they do, they can’t read.”

It was from that simple question and Sherry’s straightforward response that our decade-long school journey began. For it was on those two focal points, attendance and literacy, that we formed our “R-A-G-S to riches” school improvement plan—Reading plus Attendance will result in better Grades and a Safe school. If we can get our kids to school and give them strong literacy skills, student performance will improve and discipline problems will decrease. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, in apparent simplicity lies complexity.

A Culture Shift

We learned that improving attendance and implementing a school wide literacy initiative each require massive changes in school culture in terms of mindsets, attitudes, and adult behaviors. I knew from experience that improving attendance had a lot to do with good old fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeves, hard work. Improving student attendance also required alignment between state laws, law enforcement and court policies, district policies, school practices.

Having the right laws and procedures in place was important in the short-term. However, in long-term, we had to build a school culture that attracted students. We had to become a place where they wanted to be. We had to be the kind of school in which each and every student felt wanted and valued. We had to be the kind of school that students wanted to attend and hated to leave. We had to be a school that had to work to get students to leave, not one that had to work to get students to attend. To be that school, we had to provide a safe, clean, orderly, warm and inviting school environment built on quality relationships. In addition, we had to create a culture of success in which students came to school expecting to succeed and knowing that their teachers would not stand bye and allow them fail.

The Role of the State

When Virginia imposed strict accountability measures on schools in the mid- to late- 1990s, the principals met with state officials and made it very clear that if we are going be held accountable for student achievement, the State needs to strengthen existing attendance laws, which they did. Compulsory attendance laws in Virginia require attendance until age 18. In addition, state statutes require schools to refer students to the courts after a prescribed number of days—five.

The Role of Law Enforcement

Local crime statistics indicated that teenagers who, either should have been in school at the time, or who had a record of chronic truancy committed a significant proportion of crimes against property. The principals simply asked the police to, instead of ignoring school-aged students walking around the community during school hours, pick up truants and return them to school.

The Role of the Courts

Principals met with court officials to urge them to impose strict consequences on truants. Judges were understandably reluctant to detain a student for truancy when they had so many more serious criminal offenses to deal with. However, we pointed out to them that if they weren’t willing to detain them for truancy, they would be detaining them for much more serious offenses later. In addition, we pointed out that their current lack of will in enforcing existing laws was actually encouraging truancy. We predicted that, their willingness to take a strong stand, would, in the long-term, result in a significant drop in truancy cases, and it did. Ironically, because the courts were willing to detain truants, in the long-run, they rarely had to do so.

The Role of the District

Principals met with district officials and requested additional attendance officers, a clear district-wide policy on attendance referrals, and a clear policy relating to attendance and grading. All three requests were implemented.

Now we had strong state laws, the agreement of the courts, and district support. Now, that all the barriers were removed, it was up to us. We had no excuses and no one to blame. It was time to get to work.

Next: The Role of the School in Improving Student Attendance

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:30 PM | Permalink

Ask any educational reformer for a list of the most critical problems in our schools today and the topic of student attendance will inevitably be found near the top.  The logic is simple—if you are not there, you are not going to learn.  But based on a recent Education Week article by Hedy Chang the solutions to this long-term problem may be far more complicated than many would expect.  Ms. Chang presents five significant myths about student attendance that should give everyone in education pause.   Here are the misconceptions that she believes are inhibiting some real solutions to the problem.

Students don’t start missing a lot of school until middle or high school.

National research has determined that 10% of all kindergarten and first-graders miss at least a month of school each year.  In some places, such as New York City, the number of students is twice as high.  Obviously the vast majority of these absences are excused—children at this age are unlikely to be staying home without some parental supervision.  According to Ms. Chang the ramifications are potentially immense:  “…the bad attendance habits that lead to skipping school can become entrenched in the early years.”

Absences in the early grades don’t really affect academics.

Not surprisingly studies show that chronically absent kindergarten students do not perform as well in the first grade as those who were consistently present.  It is not unusual to have these deficiencies continue throughout elementary school.  Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments was found in Chicago where the attendance of ninth-graders proved to be a better predictor of drop outs than eighth-grade test scores.

Most schools already know how many students are chronically absent.

Ms. Chang laments that most school data concerning absences only revolve around the total school attendance patterns and “unexcused” absences.  Consequently many individuals who are missing large portions of class time remain under the educational radar.  As she points out “an elementary school of 400 students can have 95 percent of its students showing up every day and yet still have 60 children missing 18 days—or 10 percent of the school year.”

There’s not much that schools can do to improve attendance; it’s up to the parents.

While certainly the traditional path of parental involvement and truant officers needs to be taken, there are often unique concerns that an individual school can incorporate into their programs.  Ms. Chang relates that many causes of chronic absenteeism can be mitigated.  She speaks of Muslim students missing classes during Ramadan for fear of sitting in the cafeteria during these days of fasting.  Other schools had problems resulting from parents who were shift workers and were not awake when their children should have been leaving for school.  Another group that missed too many days was those in homeless shelters.  In each of these cases the affected schools found solutions. One brought in a Muslim counselor and a separate room for these students during the lunch period.  For parents who slept during the day, a school opened the building early to allow parents to drop off their children after work and before going to bed.  

The Federal government has no role in reducing chronic absenteeism.

Test scores may be important but one of the major reasons for poor test scores is bad attendance.  Ms. Chang believes that the federal government should be requiring statistics on chronic absenteeism as well as truancy and test scores.  School improvement can be measured by improved attendance.

The Bottom Line

Successful teaching cannot begin until students are regularly attending class.  Every day that is missed is a lost opportunity regardless of whether the absence is excused or not.  Consequently strategies need to be created to maximize student presence. At my former school the administrative team recognized the importance of this problem and employed a number of techniques to reduce “excused” absences.  When many Muslim students were leaving early on Fridays for prayer, the principal met with officials from the mosque and arranged for a parent volunteer to come to the building during lunch to hold the sessions in the school.  For students who were chronically absent, an automated callout system was used to make 6:00 a.m. wake-up calls to these specific homes.  But as Ms. Chang has written, too many times such innovations are being implemented too late in the process.  These kinds of interventions need to occur at the very beginning of a student’s education.

For every elementary school the overriding need is to acknowledge that all absences -excused or unexcused - are detrimental. They have both short- and long-term negative consequences.  A culture establishing excellent attendance must be created in the earliest grades.  To that end, careful and consistent attention must be given to the analysis of the attendance record of each individual student not just school-wide data.  Every reason given for missing school should be examined and methods devised to prevent them from becoming chronic. If such an approach is started in the primary years, the continuation of such policies at the high school level will become far more effective.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:05 PM | Permalink