How Are Chronic Absenteeism and Graduation Rates Both Going Up?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder asks how it's possible for chronic absenteeism and graduation rates to rise simultaneously — unless schools are graduating students who aren't actually learning.
Key Takeaways
- The math doesn't add up - If students are missing more school than ever, higher graduation rates suggest standards have dropped
- Grade inflation explains the paradox - Schools are passing and graduating students despite excessive absences
- This undermines the diploma - When graduation doesn't require attendance or mastery, the credential becomes meaningless
Transcript
What's the link between chronic absenteeism, grade inflation, and bad behavior in schools?
I was excited to see this piece by Jessica Groves in the New York Times this week, analyzing the apparent contradiction that we see in the data from a number of major districts, several states all around the country.
We're seeing graduation rates go up, test scores not go up, and chronic absenteeism go way up.
Chronic absenteeism is way up since the pandemic.
and GPAs have been going up for years and years.
Like students are not learning more, but they're getting better grades and they're graduating at higher rates.
Like something doesn't make sense here because if you don't go to school, like you shouldn't get better grades and be more likely to graduate.
That just doesn't make any sense.
So she explains what's happening here is that in a lot of districts, you are not allowed to give a zero if a student doesn't turn in their work, you have to give them a 50.
And it's not that the grade scale is changing, it's that students are getting 50 free points despite not turning in an assignment at all.
And they're catching on.
They're realizing this, that they don't have to go to school.
They don't have to turn in their work to get half credit.
When they do go to school, they can do their work and get full credit and then they can still graduate and go on with their lives.
And, you know, like I understand the empathy for students and I understand the desire to be lenient in an individual case.
You know, like if a student just barely misses the cutoff for graduation, like I would never say, nope, don't let him graduate, make him drop out or make him repeat the year like it.
on an individual basis, it's easy to say, yeah, let them graduate.
But as a society, when we do this systemically and just lower and lower and lower standards, we're not actually helping kids, right?
They're learning less.
They're getting a piece of paper, which is valuable in and of itself, but I don't feel good about just continually degrading the learning experience that kids are getting and still giving them the same diploma, still giving them the same credential and the same grades or even higher grades for less learning and less work.
And when it comes to chronic absenteeism in particular, this article doesn't talk a ton about behavior, but it talks just briefly about how teachers are not able to hold students accountable for behavior in the same ways.
One thing that I think we have to look at is the relationship between bad behavior in schools, bullying, disruptive behavior, and violence especially, and chronic absenteeism.
Like if you are a kid who doesn't really feel like going to school and you know other kids are going to be terrible and maybe pick on you and maybe bully you, maybe disrupt class, maybe assault the teacher, just be terrible in general, then maybe you're more likely to stay home.
Does that add up to anybody else?
Does that make sense that kids would not want to go to school if A, they don't have to because they're going to get a good grade, partial credit no matter what, and B, the school climate is terrible.
I personally would rather stay home than go to school climate that's violent and disrupted all day long.
And the same is true for teachers too.
Teachers would rather use every bit of sick leave they have, whether they're sick or not, rather than have to face the stress and just the terrible burden that it is to walk into an unsafe environment every day.
So I think we've got to look at these connections a little bit more closely between academic expectations and attendance and safety.
And I think if we want to improve learning, we have to improve safety first, like nothing can happen without improving safety, without making school a safe place where kids are actually willing to show up and where teachers are actually willing to show up because it's not dangerous to do so.
Second, I think we have to address this chronic absenteeism stuff.
I mean, it is just ridiculous.
And I, like, read the New York Times article.
The amount of chronic absenteeism in major districts is just through the roof.
And we can't do anything of what we do in education if the kids are not present, if they're staying home.
And it's not...
that it's the kids who have the worst behaviors necessarily who are staying home.
Like we worry so much about not suspending students because they'll miss their learning.
But what about the huge double digit percentage of kids who are missing a double digit percentage of their school year because they are absent, because they have some sort of issue maybe with other students.
Maybe they just don't feel safe at school.
I don't know what the individual issues are, but we have to do something about that chronic absenteeism because nothing else can happen if we don't get kids in the door.
Let me know what you think.