Masking Attendance: How Education Policy Ignores School Attendance for Students in Poverty

• In Event: Perpetuating Inequalities: The Role of Political Distraction in Education Policy Making

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes
Typically when discussing education policy approaches, policymakers and stakeholders tend to focus on reforms that address issues of class size, testing, teacher quality, school choice, and school climate. These are just a few of the areas of focus when we try to find ways to improve students’ educational outcomes. Although well intentioned, these reform policies often miss the bigger picture of students’ life circumstances, particularly the vital role of attendance on academic success. Students who miss school frequently will not benefit from even the most effective reforms. Attendance is a major predictor of achievement, especially as students’ progress through the education system.

Every year more than 8 million students miss 10% or more days of school for any reason. Missing school frequently has important academic consequences, particularly for students living in poverty. Unfortunately, many initiatives, policies, and practices taken to address chronic absenteeism focus on punitive reforms, which at best alienate students and their families; at worst, they lead to legal mandates, which can push students into the “school to prison pipeline.” These punitive policies often lead to students missing more school and may have the opposite effect on improving students’ attendance.

Theoretical Perspectives
The authors will use the theory of focusing events, significant episodes or experiences that catapult particular issues to prominence on the public’s agenda (Cobb & Elder, 1983). As it relates to education policy, the focusing event was the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that lead to the Every Students Succeed Act. This focusing event triggered 36 states to quickly adapt policies and practices that would improve attendance. However, these policy adaptations fail to address poverty and improving the conditions of students living in poverty as a way to increase school attendance.

Data Sources and Methods
For this study, we conducted a policy analysis of thirty states chronic absenteeism plans under ESSA, to understand the ways in which states discussed improving attendance. This policy analysis included a coding scheme that identified how states were going to support schools and districts to improve attendance, provide resources and expertise that would lead to solutions, and how states would implement (or not implement) interventions that impacted the most vulnerable students who are also chronically absent.
Results and Substantiated Conclusions
Our study highlights that states’ policies lacked direction and focus when it came to addressing the root causes of chronic absenteeism, including issues around poverty. Furthermore, we found that the targets and goals states used to improve chronic absenteeism not only varied, but raised significant questions as it relates to equity.

Scientific/Scholarly Significance
Further research is required to elucidate the larger picture: the cumulative impact of poverty on attendance and its influence in undermining the effects of educational reforms. This paper will discuss how ignoring attendance undermines current reforms aimed at academic achievement and exposes the lack of conversation about the impact of poverty on student attendance.

Authors

• Joshua Childs, The University of Texas at Austin

• Richard Lofton, Johns Hopkins University