Combatting Attendance Gaming and Mistakes Under ESSA
September 10, 2018
Taylor Swaak reports for The 74 that “tackling chronic absenteeism is now part of education plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act for 36 states and Washington, D.C.” She also reports that the “resulting requirements are also new, with many states crafting uniform definitions for chronic absence for the first time and reporting attendance data that distinguishes whether each student absence is excused, unexcused, or linked to disciplinary action.” This increases the “accountability stakes” for absenteeism and, in combination with new reporting methods, “have some education experts worried that the data could be vulnerable to error or manipulation.”