Most chronically absent students concentrated in a few districts
SEATTLE _ Nine out of 10 school districts have some students who are chronically absent _ meaning they've missed 15 or more days in a single school year, according to a new analysis of federal data.
At the same time, nearly half the 6.5 million students who were chronically absent in the 2013-14 school year attend just 4 percent of the nation's school districts.
The analysis, the first of its kind from new data from the U.S. Department of Education, signals a need for broad outreach as well as targeted efforts in districts most affected by chronic absenteeism, researchers said.
"It means quite a small subset of schools face a much-higher degree of concentration or number of chronically absent kids than anyone else," said Robert Balfanz, one of the researchers, who works at Johns Hopkins University and leads the Everyone Graduates Center.
The national average for chronically absent students in 2013-14 was 13 percent. In Washington state, the average was nearly 25 percent, the second-highest rate in the U.S., behind Washington, D.C.
Overall, Balfanz said the researchers were surprised to find the rates were so highly concentrated.
They expected to find a lot of chronic absenteeism in urban districts with large populations of low-income students, but they were surprised to find high rates in a number of small- or medium-sized districts in postindustrial cities, like Albany, N.Y.
_The Seattle Times
