Can Schools Affect Attendance?
Why removing attendance from accountability systems may send the wrong message
When I was helping to redesign the Virginia school accountability system last year, one thing I heard over and over is that schools should not be held accountable for student attendance. On more than one occasion, we were told it should be worth no more than 1% of a school’s overall rating.1 These commenters argued that schools had little control over attendance and therefore shouldn't be judged on it.
Reflecting this same spirit, the state legislature in Oklahoma recently dropped chronic absenteeism from its school rating system. See Linda Jacobson’s story from The 74 about how the debate played out. Here’s a key quote:
“I’m not sure that it’s fair to evaluate schools based on something that we cannot control,” said Mike Simpson, superintendent of the Guthrie Public Schools, north of Oklahoma City. Originally in favor of making chronic absenteeism a factor in schools’ A-F grades, he no longer thinks it’s a good way to assess schools.
Can schools affect attendance?
No one disputes the fact that school attendance is highly correlated with student academic performance. It’s obvious that attendance is important, and every day that a child misses school affects their performance. The more days that a student can attend school, the better off they will be.
The returns to education are linear (mostly)
Sometimes in education we get hung up on benchmarks and milestones. But it’s important to remember that the value of education is mostly linear.
But the debate breaks down over whether schools can actually do anything about this. Should they just educate the students who show up in their building in the morning, or is there anything they can do to shape those student (and family) behaviors?
I think the answer is yes. While schools certainly cannot control every reason students miss school, they do have some control over student attendance. The most obvious example in front of us is COVID. As expectations around staying home changed, absenteeism surged. Schools have spent the past several years trying to rebuild those norms, with varied success.
But studies have found that relatively low-cost interventions, such as personalized letters or text messages informing parents about their child's attendance can modestly reduce absenteeism. More intensive approaches, including early warning systems that identify at-risk students, mentoring programs, and efforts to strengthen school climate and student engagement, have also been shown to improve attendance. Sports, tutoring, and other activities can give students a reason to come to school.
In terms of actually implementing these ideas, a recent case study from SchoolStatus showed how they helped 89 districts make substantial improvements in their chronic absenteeism rates.
Importantly, attendance rates also vary across schools serving similar students and neighborhoods, suggesting that school practices and climate influence whether students choose to come to school. While no single intervention can eliminate chronic absenteeism, schools can improve attendance by identifying problems early (see this cool tool from AEI’s Nat Malkus and Sam Hollon), building stronger relationships with students and families, and making school a place where students feel connected and want to be present.
Iowa takes a different approach
Policymakers can affect attendance as well. Rather than throwing up their hands, Iowa has taken a different approach. According to a recent story by Wayne D’Orio, their tough love approach is paying off:
One state that stands out for its progress in beating this trend is Iowa. It passed a wide-ranging law two years ago that requires each school to notify parents if a child’s non-exempt absences hit 10% of a grading period, create a specific attendance plan for that student if missed days reach 15% and those absences are affecting academic progress and push the case to a county attorney for possible misdemeanor charges if a student misses 20% of school days.
In just one year after the law was passed, chronic absenteeism in Iowa fell to just below 16% in 2024-25 from 21.6% in 2023-24. Over the last three years, the state has seen a 9.8 percentage-point decrease in chronic absenteeism — significantly better than the 5.9 percentage point decrease seen nationwide during that time, [AEI’s Nat] Malkus said.
Of course, we can't know how much of Iowa's improvement was caused by the law itself. But the state's experience demonstrates that policymakers are not powerless in the face of a surge in absenteeism. Clear communication around norms, expectations, and consequences can help.
Ultimately, attendance isn't solely the responsibility of a student or the family or the school. Schools cannot eliminate chronic absenteeism, but they can make it better, or they can make it worse.
Accountability systems should recognize that reality. They shouldn't pretend attendance is entirely outside schools' control, nor should they expect schools to solve the problem alone. The question is how much weight attendance deserves alongside everything else schools are trying to accomplish.
Reading List
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Charlie Barone: “Accountability, done well, …is about making sure we do not look away when students are not learning.”
EdPolicy Hub: We Need Accountability, But We Aren’t Going to Re-make the Mistakes of NCLB
Dr. Christine Toribio Pitts: How does Oregon, a state in the top tier of spending, land in the bottom tier of results?
Kelly Sia: There’s more to the i-Ready story
The Board ultimately gave it a 10% weight in ratings for elementary and middle schools and 5% for high schools.