Below is a list of research related to attendance
The reports on this page are listed alphabetically and examine the issue of chronic absence nationwide and in selected communities. Use the search box to find research using the author name. See the early education, elementary, secondary and other research categories on the right. To submit new research, please contact us.
Preschool Attendance in Chicago Public Schools: Relationships with Learning Outcomes and Reasons for Absences
Ehrlich, Stacy B. University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research, May 2014. This report highlights the critical importance of consistent preschool attendance. Students who attend preschool regularly are significantly more likely than chronically absent preschoolers to be ready for kindergarten and to attend school regularly in later grades, the report finds. The study, which follows 25,000 three- and four-year-olds…
Preventable Failure: Improvements in Long-Term Outcomes when High Schools Focused on the Ninth Grade Year
Roderick, Melissa. University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, April 2014. Research from UChicago CCSR shows that students who end their ninth-grade year on track are almost four times more likely to graduate from high school than those who are off track. In response, Chicago Public Schools launched a major effort in 2007 centered on keeping more ninth-graders on…
Free to Fail or On-Track to College: Why Grades Drop When Students Enter High School and What Adults Can Do About It
Rosenkranz, Todd. University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, April 2014. High school teachers often assume freshmen are ready to take on the responsibility for managing their own academic behavior. However, students often interpret their new freedom to mean that attending classes and working hard are choices rather than responsibilities, and as a result their attendance and study habits…
Attendance in the Early Grades: Why it Matters for Reading
Attendance Works and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, February 2014. This brief summarizes a growing body of research which documents how many youngsters are chronically absent, meaning they miss 10 percent or more of the school year due to excused or unexcused absences. The research also shows how these missed days, as early as preschool, translate into weaker reading skills…
Retained Students and Classmates’ Absences in Urban Schools
Gottfried, Michael A. American Educational Research Journal, December 2013, Vol. 50, No. 6, pp. 1392–1423. Research in grade retention has predominantly focused on the effect of this practice on the retained student. This study examines the effect of retained classmates on the outcomes of other students in the same classroom. Using a longitudinal data set of all elementary school students…
Meeting the Challenge of Combating Chronic Absenteeism: Impact of the NYC Mayor’s Interagency Task Force on Chronic Absenteeism and School Attendance and Its Implications for Other Cities
Balfanz, Robert and Vaughn Byrnes. Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Education, November 2013. This report examines the impact of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s task force on truancy, chronic absenteeism and school engagement, a program that spanned 2010 to 2013 and reached more than 60,000 students in NYC public schools. The study found that students who…
In School and On Track: Report on California’s Elementary School Truancy and Absenteeism Crisis
Office of Attorney General, California Department of Justice, 2013. According to the California Department of Education, 691,470 California elementary school children, or 1 out of every 5 elementary school students, were reported to be truant in the 2011-2012 school year. Statewide, 38% of all truant students are elementary school children. Given these disturbing statistics, Attorney General Kamala Harris commissioned a…