The “Nudging” Approach to Fighting Chronic Absenteeism
November 5, 2018
“As many as 8 million U.S. public school students struggle academically simply because they miss too much school,” Phyllis W. Jordan writes in Education Next. “Recognizing this, 36 states and the District of Columbia have begun holding schools accountable for chronic student absenteeism” under ESSA. This has educators “scrambling for proven practices to keep students coming to school every day.” One way to tackle this problem is through “nudges”—which, according to Harvard University researcher Todd Rogers, are “unobtrusive interventions to promote desired behavior.”