Masking Attendance: How Education Policy Distracts from the Wicked Problem(s) of Chronic Absenteeism

Abstract

Traditionally, education policy focuses on reforms that address class size, teaching and learning within classrooms, school choice, and changes in leadership as ways to improve students’ educational outcomes. Although well intentioned, education policy can distract from the multi-layered causes that impact achievement and opportunity gaps, and how students’ life circumstances can affect their school attendance. Students who miss school frequently are less likely to be impacted by even the most robust and comprehensive education reforms. This paper discusses how the root causes of chronic absenteeism are complex and that policy distractions can stifle solutions to solve school attendance issues. As a wicked problem, chronic absenteeism, requires a conceptual framework that helps to organize policy responses within all levels of the educational system, as well as expansive to include other social sectors within public policy.

Advancing an Ecological Approach to Chronic Absenteeism: Evidence from Detroit

“…Our ecological understanding of absenteeism suggests that school-based efforts are necessary but not sufficient to substantially decrease rates of chronic absenteeism (Childs & Lofton, 2021). Policy makers must match these school-based efforts with coordinated strategies for addressing social and economic inequality, including safe and reliable school transportation (Gottfried, 2017), stable and affordable housing (Erb-Downward & Watt, 2018;Evangelist & Shaefer, 2020), and more effective poverty reduction and economic assistance programs (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019;Shaefer et al, 2018;Tach & Edin, 2017).…”

“…Chronic absenteeism, typically defined as missing 10% or more days of school per year, has received increased attention from educational leaders and policy makers (Balfanz & Chang, 2016;Chang & Romero, 2008;Childs & Grooms, 2018), in part because of the association between attendance and important student outcomes, such as academic achievement and graduation rates (Allensworth & Easton, 2007;Gottfried, 2014b). Student absenteeism is influenced by a range of student-, school-, and community-level characteristics (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012;Childs & Lofton, 2021;Gottfried & Gee, 2017;Lenhoff & Pogodzinski, 2018), suggesting that a comprehensive and multilayered approach to improving student attendance is warranted (Childs & Grooms, 2018). This is particularly important in high-poverty urban districts, where chronic absenteeism rates "are typically two, to as much as four times, higher than the national average" (Balfanz & Chang, 2016, p. 10).…”

Functional impairment guidelines for school attendance problems in youth: Recommendations for caseness in the modern era.

“…Policies based largely on punitive measures for absenteeism often paradoxically impose greater barriers to future school attendance; examples include exclusionary discipline, court referral, or penalties such as loss of driving privileges. These policies tend to disproportionately affect vulnerable student/family groups (see the cost element in the family domain section; Childs & Lofton, 2021). Note that simply passing a legal threshold for illicit absenteeism is not necessarily problematic; many school officials ignore formal absenteeism statutes in favor of their own modified approaches or work with families with students with SAPs to remediate the issue and avoid formal sanctions (Birioukov-Brant & Brant-Birioukov, 2019).…”

Multi-tiered systems of support for school attendance and its problems: An unlearning perspective for areas of high chronic absenteeism

“…This shift in mindset requires less burden on underresourced schools and more burden on shared alliances for purposes of community development and positive youth development frameworks (Zaff et al, 2015). School absenteeism is often a complex, multigenerational, and relentless (wicked) problem (Childs and Lofton, 2021). As such, shared alliances are necessary to address multilayered characteristics and can include collaborations among agencies (e.g., education, housing, legal, public health, welfare) to better track students removed from the educational process and to develop comprehensive early warning and intervention systems salient to a particular area.…”