Absent from School: Understanding and Addressing Student Absenteeism

by Michael A. Gottfried (Editor), Ethan L. Hutt (Editor), Elaine Allensworth (Foreword by), Robert Balfanz (Foreword by), Todd Rogers (Afterword)

Overview

In Absent from School, Gottfried and Hutt offer a comprehensive and timely resource for educators and policy makers seeking to understand the scope, impact, and causes of chronic student absenteeism. The editors present a series of studies by leading researchers from a variety of disciplines that address which students are missing school and why, what roles schools themselves play in contributing to or offsetting patterns of absenteeism, and ways to assess student attendance for purposes of school accountability. The contributors examine school-based initiatives that focus on a range of issues, including transportation, student health, discipline policies, and protections for immigrant students, as well as interventions intended to improve student attendance.
 
Only in the past two or three years has chronic absenteeism become the focus of attention among policy makers, civil rights advocates, and educators. Absent from School provides the first critical, systematic look at research that can inform and guide those who are working to ensure that every child is in school and learning every day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682532799
Publisher:	Harvard Education Press
Publication date:	03/09/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	310,659
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Michael A. Gottfried is an associate professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD and MA in applied economics from the University of Pennsylvania and his BA in economics from Stanford University. Gottfried has conducted numerous research studies in the area of school absenteeism, ranging from estimating the effects of absences on achievement and socioemotional development to identifying school factors and programs that can reduce chronic absenteeism, and has lectured domestically and internationally on the subject.

Ethan L. Hutt is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his MA in history and PhD in the history of education from Stanford University. His research focuses on the historical relationship between quantification, education policy, and the law. In particular, he looks at the numbers and metrics that are used to describe, define, and regulate American school systems and has explored such topics as the history of the GED, grading practices, standardized test use, value-added measures, and longitudinal datasets.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword
Elaine Allensworth and Robert Balfanz

Introduction
Michael A. Gottfried and Ethan L. Hutt

PART I
Measuring Absenteeism

1. Roll Call
Describing Chronically Absent Students, the Schools They Attend, and Implications for Accountability
Heather Hough

2. Variation in Chronic Absenteeism
The Role of Children, Classrooms, and Schools
Kevin A. Gee

3.Attending to Attendance
Why Data Quality and Modeling Assumptions Matter When Using Attendance as an Outcome
Shaun M. Dougherty and Joshua Childs

4. The Distributional Impacts of Student Absences on Academic Achievement
Seth Gershenson, Jessica Rae McBean, and Long Tran

PART II
Policies, Programs, and Practices

5. Reinforcing Student Attendance
Shifting Mind-Sets and Implementing Data-Driven Improvement Strategies During School Transitions
Stacy B. Ehrlich and David W. Johnson

6. Schools as Sanctuaries?
Examining the Relationship Between Immigration Enforcement and Absenteeism Rates for Immigrant-Origin Children
Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj and Jacob Kirksey

7. Can School Buses Drive Down (Chronic) Absenteeism?
Sarah A. Cordes, Michele Leardo, Christopher Rick, and Amy Ellen Schwartz

8. The Ills of Absenteeism
Can School-Based Health Centers Provide the Cure?
Jennifer Graves, Sarit Weisburd, and Christopher Salem

9. Tackling Truancy
Findings from a State-Level Policy Banning Suspensions for Truancy
Kaitlin Anderson, Anna J. Egalite, and Jonathan N. Mills

PART III
Interventions

10. Ready . . . Set . . . Text!
Reducing School Absenteeism Through Parent-School Two-Way Text Messaging
Ken Smythe-Leistico and Lindsay C. Page

11. Keeping Families Front and Center
Leveraging Our Best Ally for Ninth-Grade Attendance
Martha Abele Mac Iver and Steven B. Sheldon

12. Intervention Design Choices and Evaluation Lessons from Multisite Field Trials on Reducing Absenteeism
Rekha Balu
 
13. Conclusion
Ethan L. Hutt and Michael A. Gottfried

Afterword
Todd Rogers and Johannes Demarzi

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Index