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Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: What's the Best Way to Measure a School's Quality? 5 Factors to Consider
What's the best way to measure a school's quality? It depends on whom you ask. Parents, educators, employers and policymakers hold many different opinions about the goals of education and, therefore, about how to judge school performance. Yet virtually every educational aim rests on the same foundation: giving students a strong academic grounding and developing the knowledge and habits of mind that allow them to think critically, communicate effectively and acquire knowledge and skills over time. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter At this challenging moment in American education, with student achievement in decline, FutureEd and the Keystone Policy Center decided to approach the question of how best to measure schools from scratch. We combed the research about the features of schools that make the greatest contribution to academic achievement and identified five research-based characteristics that together provide a more complete and precise picture of school quality than is typically available. All the measures can support school improvement and provide parents and the public with a fuller understanding of school performance. But not all are suitable for high-stakes accountability decisions. Some metrics lack the reliability, validity and comparability necessary for ranking schools, replacing their staff or closing them. For decades, accountability systems judged schools based primarily on state test scores. But these correlate strongly with demographics and family income, making it difficult to gauge the real contributions of schools to improved student outcomes. A fairer, and increasingly popular, way to judge schools also considers how much they contribute to growth in students' test scores over the year. To achieve at high levels, students need access to challenging coursework. Policymakers can address this in accountability systems by measuring whether schools offer access to a broad range of course offerings, including the arts, sciences and technology, so schools don't narrow their focus to just reading and math. To help teachers deliver strong instruction, research increasingly points to the importance of using high-quality, standards-aligned instructional materials, which many states and districts are starting to emphasize. Research also has found that completion of one or more advanced math and science classes in high school predicts both college readiness and later health, job satisfaction and well-being. This can be measured by the availability of and enrollment in Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual-enrollment programs, for example, but only if they are made accessible to students who may have been shut out in the past. Related Student surveys also provide insight into whether schools provide a learning environment that promotes high achievement. But any use of surveys should include safeguards against adults influencing responses, and states must ensure they are valid and reliable. That's why many states and districts use surveys for school improvement rather than accountability. Accountability systems also could include reviews of student work, with a focus on instructional rigor, though doing so requires systematically collecting and evaluating work samples across schools. Research consistently shows that teacher and principal quality contribute more to student achievement than any other school-based factors. Traditionally, teacher quality has been measured by years of experience and subject-specific expertise, such as degrees earned or passing of teacher-licensure exams. But these measures often don't correlate with student achievement. A sounder strategy would be to identify the percentages of effective or highly effective teachers in a school through teacher evaluation systems that use multiple measures of quality and classroom observation, though few states have such systems at scale. States and districts can measure a principal's impact on student success using multiple measures and several years' worth of achievement data. Educator surveys of principal-teacher and teacher-to-teacher trust; principals' instructional leadership; and teachers' commitment to their school also provide an important window into a school's overall professional capacity. To prevent pressure from influencing survey results, states and districts should limit such measures to school improvement. Many states include chronic student absenteeism in their accountability systems as a proxy for student engagement and whether a school's climate is safe and conducive to learning. It is a reasonable strategy. But well-designed and well-implemented student, teacher and educator surveys — again, with sufficient validity and reliability safeguards — can provide more direct measures of school culture. Such surveys also can provide key insights into where improvement is needed. Related Test scores are proxies for long-term measures that parents value. But metrics such as whether students attend and graduate from college or career-training programs, enroll in the military, find gainful employment, and lead healthy and fulfilling lives are better gauges of readiness for adulthood. Though few states measure outcomes such as college enrollment when evaluating schools, better connecting pre-K-12 data systems to postsecondary and labor market data could help monitor a range of important post-high-school outcomes. Many high-performing countries use inspection systems that combine test scores and other quantitative measures with classroom observations and interviews conducted by teams of trained experts who visit schools to gather information on important features of success. These reviews typically include a school self-assessment followed by team site visits. They result in a comprehensive report describing a school's strengths and weaknesses and recommended steps for improvement. While such inspection systems have spread rapidly around the world, the cost and logistics of conducting valid and reliable school site reviews at scale has slowed their adoption in the U.S., particularly for high-stakes accountability decisions. Test scores matter. But by themselves, they provide an incomplete measure of school success. They also offer little guidance or support on how schools can improve. A more comprehensive set of research-based metrics would provide parents, educators and policymakers with a richer understanding of what makes schools successful and a clearer sense of how to strengthen them. Measurement systems that combine standardized test scores, access to rigorous and advanced coursework, prevalence of effective teachers and school leaders, evaluations of respectful and supportive school cultures and data on student success after high school are most likely to promote higher student achievement. Responsibility for weighting each strand and the specific metrics within them should rest with state and local education officials. But each component should play a role in evaluating school success.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Kindergarten's Overlooked Absenteeism Problem
Gabrielle Pobega knows kindergarten is more than just kids coloring, playing and singing songs, so she made sure her daughter made it to kindergarten at Lincoln Park Academy in Cleveland every day. 'They teach you ABCs,' Pobrega said as he picked up her third grader after school. 'They teach you how to write. They teach you small little words and it prepares them for first grade.' But not all parents value kindergarten as much as Pobrega. So many parents treat kindergarten as less important than other grades that it adds up into a major problem — nationally, across Ohio and particularly at Lincoln Park and other high-poverty schools. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Kindergarten has the highest absenteeism problem of any elementary grade in several states, studies have shown. In Ohio, attendance can be so bad that state data show some kindergartens approaching 90% chronic absenteeism. Though chronic absenteeism — students missing 10 percent or more of school days — is drawing national attention for high school students, there has long been a second, less publicized, peak in absenteeism in kindergarten and sometimes preschool that is also damaging. Hedy Chang, one of the leading researchers of absenteeism and its effects, said kindergarten absenteeism needs educator's attention, not just high school absences. 'You really want to worry about both,' said Chang, founder of the nonprofit Attendance Works. 'You want to care about your youngest incoming learners, because that's going to be critical for the long term. What you don't invest in and address early, you might pay for later.' Consider: In Ohio, more than a quarter of Ohio kindergarteners missed at least 18 days of school in the 2023-24 school year, state data shows, making kindergarten the highest chronic absenteeism rate of any elementary school grade in the state. That matches findings by nonprofit FutureEd in March that kindergarteners had the highest chronic absenteeism of any grade in Hawaii and Utah last school year. In all 20 other states FutureEd looked at, Kindergarten had the highest chronic absenteeism rates before 7th grade. 'We see this U-shaped curve,' when charting absenteeism by grade, said Amber Humm Patnode, acting director of Proving Ground, a Harvard based research and absenteeism intervention effort. There is high absenteeism in kindergarten, it improves for several years, and typically rises again in late middle school. She said there are really two separate absenteeism problems — one for the youngest and one for the oldest students — that need different strategies to fix. Ohio State University professor Arya Ansari, who specializes in early childhood education, called kindergarten absenteeism 'problematic' because missed classes add up over the years. 'Kids who missed school in kindergarten do less well academically in terms of things like counting, letters, word identification, language skills.., they do less well in terms of their executive function skills, and they do less well socially and behaviorally,' Ansari said. 'Days missed in preschool or kindergarten kind of set the stage, or are precursors for future absences,' he added. 'So when you're frequently absent, it kind of begins to have a snowball effect and sets habits that are harder to break later on.' There's also another dynamic at play with kindergarten absences: It varies by school, in very dramatic ways. Though Ohio's kindergarten chronic absenteeism rate was just above 26% last year, 27 kindergartens had chronic absenteeism triple that rate, coming close to or exceeding 80%. Lincoln Park had the worst rate in the state last year at nearly 90%, with close to 9 out of 10 kindergarteners qualifying as chronically absent. Adding to the damage, the worst kindergarten absenteeism is happening in places where the students need it most. Ohio's list of highest absenteeism rates is dominated by schools in, or next to, the state's biggest or most poor cities — Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Youngstown — where students have performed well below suburban students for years. In contrast, affluent and higher-performing schools easily have less than 5% kindergarten chronic absenteeism, with several at zero. Students in the high-poverty schools are not only missing days that could start them on a path to catching up, the absences are holding everyone back even more, Chang said. 'I consider high (absenteeism) at 20%, 30% in a school,' Chang said. '80%? That's an extremely high level of chronic absence. When schools have really high levels of chronic absence, the churn just makes everything harder. It makes it harder for teachers to teach, set classroom norms and kids to learn.' Some of why kindergarten absenteeism is so high is easy to understand. For many kids, it's the first year of school, so kindergartens become superspreader sites for colds, flu and other illnesses kids haven't been exposed to before. Since chronic absenteeism includes any days missed, even for illness, rates could legitimately spike. The pandemic added a twist to that, said Robert Balfanz, a Johns Hopkins University professor and another leader in absenteeism research. 'It used to be that parents got guidance (that) If your kid just had sniffles, you could send them to school,' Balfanz said. 'Then, coming out of the pandemic, parents got the message… perhaps overload, perhaps not…that should you have any sign of illness, you could have COVID. That's another factor.' Just as important: Only 17 states required students to attend kindergarten as of 2023, according to the Education Commission of the States. That easily leads parents to consider it optional and for school to really start in first grade. Then there's kindergartners' need for parents or siblings to take them to school or to their bus stop. If school and work schedules don't align, or if a sibling's school is different, kindergarten falls lower on the priority list. 'A kindergartener not coming to school is not necessarily the kindergartner saying, 'I'm not going to school today,' ' said Jessica Horowitz-Moore, chief of student and academic supports for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. 'That has to do a lot with the parents.' Parents oftentimes don't appreciate how fast absences add up. Another parent picking up children at Lincoln Park was a perfect example. That father said his child only missed school 'a couple times a month' when in kindergarten. But twice a month is 10% of the 20 school days in a month (Four weeks of five days each) which is right on pace for chronic absenteeism. Some of the kindergartens in Ohio with the worst absenteeism in 2023-24 were failing in many other ways too: Two charter elementary schools with kindergarten chronic absenteeism over 87% closed before school began this academic year. Some, including the Stepstone Academy charter school in Cleveland, did not respond to multiple messages from The 74. Lincoln Park, with the worst kindergarten absenteeism problem in the state, is part of the ACCEL charter schools, a fast-growing multi-state charter network, that had five of Ohio's 10-worst kindergartens for chronic absenteeism. Representatives of the network said the schools are often in high poverty neighborhoods with families that move frequently, which disrupts attendance. Students often don't have reliable transportation, they said, and Ohio's charter schools have less money to put toward attendance issues than districts. Lincoln Park school leaders say they're trying to improve attendance and academic performance. Both the school's principal and kindergarten teacher are new this year and interim Principal Erika Vogtsberger said she expects the preschool attendance rate to go up from 74% last year to about 80% this school year. She said fewer families are moving during this school year than last, and more than 90% of Lincoln Park's students have signed up to return, bringing stability she thinks will help attendance. The school has also been trying for a few years to encourage attendance. It has early morning and afterschool sessions so working parents can drop children off at 6:30 am and pick them up as late as 5:30 pm. It holds special events like pancake breakfasts for families to encourage attendance and gives classrooms with 90 percent attendance for five days a chance to spin a wheel for rewards like pizza parties or a chance to wear pajamas to school for a day. But even at 90% goal to earn prizes still leaves 10% of students absent racking up days toward chronic absenteeism. 'We have to make it attainable,' Vogtsberger said. 'If I had it at 95%, the kids who are here without missing a day are going to get discouraged because… we do have a small cluster of people who are out pretty regularly.' 'Nobody would get it,' added Sherree Dillions, a regional superintendent for ACCEL. 'At least, with the 90%, peer to peer pressure is a big piece. You say 'You better come … You better come tomorrow, because we want that pizza party', or we want whatever … Because the kid wants the prize.' Voghtsberger said she also does not want to punish students, either, because their parents aren't doing what they need to do. 'No matter how bad some students want to be at school, if their parents are not getting up in the morning and bringing them, they cannot get to school, and… that's not their fault.' she said. School officials also said parents are a problem beyond not bringing children to school. Parents, they said, are often abusive when called or visited to check on students and have sometimes threatened school officials with guns or dogs. Ohio has also moved away from taking action against students or parents for truancy, so parents face no penalty for keeping students home, as they do in other states, including Indiana, West Virginia and Iowa. 'If I had my way, parents would be held accountable across the board,' Dillions said. The Toledo school district, whose Sherman elementary school has the worst absenteeism of any school district kindergarten in Ohio, also saw parents push back when the school called or visited about students skipping school. The district decided in 2017 to pay for well-known people in neighborhoods, like football coaches or local volunteers, to serve as 'attendance champions' to talk to parents instead of school officials. '(They) go out to the homes,' Baker said. 'They complete home visits. They work with the families to remove barriers to attendance. They're in the buildings every day, building relationships with students, removing barriers on that end as well.' 'They are not truancy officers,' Baker stressed. 'They are not to issue any punishment. That's not their thing. This is about, 'How can I help get Johnny back into school?' The champions have reduced some of the tension between schools and parents, she said. Baker has seen better attendance this year, so she expects kindergarten chronic absenteeism there to fall from about 87% to 77% — still about triple the statewide rate. There are some reasons for optimism across Ohio and nationally. Absenteeism at all grades, including kindergarten, is improving yearly since the end of the pandemic everywhere. Baker said, though, that kindergarten may need to be more of a priority. 'We're going to have to really hit preschool and kindergarten a little bit harder with our interventions that we are setting up,' she said. 'We have been very much focused on high school. But I think for us as a district … we really have to continue to hit this hard across the board.'
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Student Well-Being, School Choice, Higher Ed Top Governors' Priorities for 2025
As governors delivered their 2025 State of the State addresses, they outlined a range of strategies to improve their schools, from increasing K-12 funding and expanding educational choice to investing in early childhood programs and higher education. Yet few focused directly on arguably the most pressing issue: declining student achievement. FutureEd analyzed speeches from 41 governors to identify states' education agendas for the coming year, highlighting common themes, bipartisan commitments and partisan divides. Across party lines, governors remained committed to investing in public education, with many proposing increased K-12 funding and efforts to modernize school finance formulas to better support high-need students. Alongside these general financial commitments, governors prioritized strengthening the teaching profession, addressing youth mental health, restricting cellphone use and expanding career pathways for high schoolers. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Still, few governors proposed new steps to directly improve student learning. Some emphasized efforts to raise academic standards and strengthen accountability, topics absent in recent years. But this year's speeches largely sidelined new curriculum initiatives, perhaps because many states have enacted reforms in that area — particularly in literacy — in recent years. Mentions of academic acceleration programs that were widely supported during the pandemic but now face an uncertain future as federal ESSER funds expire were also rare. These include high-dosage tutoring, afterschool and summer enrichment. Some governors argued that their school choice initiatives would improve student outcomes. Related School choice remained a key point of division, with several Republican governors advocating for more private options that Democrats opposed. Ideological divides also resurfaced on race and gender — topics largely absent from speeches in recent years — as a few Republicans called for banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, restricting transgender participation in sports and opposing what they described as 'indoctrination' and 'woke agendas' in education. Here is a summary of the major education proposals in the governors' addresses (click on each state in the interactive maps below): One of the most popular topics this year was student well-being, with a focus on mental health, technology use, school meals and safety. While youth mental health remains a top concern — highlighted by 15 governors — many are shifting from traditional investments in counseling and school-based services to restrictions on cellphones and social media. Concerns over technology's impact on student mental health are growing. As Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted in her annual address, 'Suicide rates among teens have tripled, self-harm among girls has risen by nearly 200%, and depression among teenagers has increased by 150%. The culprit is clear: unrestricted access to phones and social media.' Huckabee Sanders and the leaders of at least 12 other states, mostly Republican-led, proposed bans on phones in schools, with most citing mental and behavioral health concerns. Governors also pushed for stronger internet safety measures and social media restrictions. In New York, Democrat Kathy Hochul has taken a different approach with her 'Unplug and Play' initiative, which expands outdoor and extracurricular opportunities to reduce children's reliance on social media. She also called for shielding students from the risks posed by artificial intelligence. While cell phone and social media restrictions have gained some bipartisan traction, major investments in school-based mental health are largely a Democratic priority this year. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, for example, proposed nearly $300 million to expand mental health services, including suicide-prevention programs and educator training. To address students' nutritional needs, Democratic governors in Maine, Kansas, New York and Wisconsin proposed expanding free school meals. On the Republican side, Huckabee Sanders introduced the Buy Local Act to encourage schools to purchase their food in state and proposed using medical marijuana revenue for meal funding, and North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong pledged to expand his state's Farm-to-School program. Governors from six states — Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, New Mexico and South Carolina — proposed school safety efforts. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun plans to establish an Office of School Safety, Gov. Henry McMaster wants to fund school resource officers in every South Carolina school and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe is pursuing legislation requiring regular safety planning meetings and incident reporting. School choice remains a key topic this year, with 15 governors addressing the issue. While initiatives to let families use public money for private schooling dominated the discussion, several governors proposed expanding public-school choice, sometimes alongside private-school initiatives. Proposals largely followed party lines. Nine Republican governors advocated for expanding education savings accounts and other private school-choice initiatives. McMaster aims to pass new ESA legislation and allocate $30 million after the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state's previous program unconstitutional. Related Braun seeks to make private school choice available to every student in Indiana, while Kehoe proposes adding $50 million in state funding to supplement a tax credit-funded ESA program. Virginia's Glenn Youngkin is requesting $50 million for 'Opportunity Scholarships' for low-income families, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is renewing his push for a long-debated universal school choice measure. In the wake of widespread criticism of Arizona's costly education savings account program and its lack of transparency on spending and student performance, some Republicans emphasized stronger oversight and protections for public school funding in their proposals. Idaho's Brad Little stressed the need for a 'fair, responsible, transparent and accountable' approach that prioritizes families in need without diverting funds from public schools. Governors in South Dakota and Virginia also emphasized safeguarding public school resources. Meanwhile, three Democratic governors — Arizona's Katie Hobbs, Kansas's Laura Kelly and Kentucky's Andy Beshear — expressed opposition to using public funds for private education. Hobbs is once again seeking to add guardrails to Arizona's universal ESA program, which was enacted by her Republican predecessor. These include setting income caps and ensuring transparency in spending. Kelly and Beshear vowed to block new private school choice initiatives. Related At the same time, six governors from both parties are pushing to expand public-school choice. Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis voiced support for giving parents more options and making it easier for high-quality and innovative schools to open. Republicans Joe Lombardo of Nevada and Kehoe supported allowing students to attend public schools outside their assigned attendance zone. Armstrong proposed a new policy that would allow charters to open in North Dakota. Fifteen governors outlined higher education priorities focused on affordability, workforce alignment and alternative pathways. McMaster pledged to freeze in-state tuition for a sixth year and is seeking $80 million in financial aid to ensure all eligible students receive state assistance. Hochul proposed free community college for New York students entering high-demand fields like advanced manufacturing, education and health care. Several states are expanding access through alternative postsecondary pathways. Huckabee Sanders launched the ACCESS initiative, which, among other things, will expand scholarships to include associate degrees and non-degree programs, and fund college credits for high school students. Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee plans to fund dual enrollment, allowing high school students to earn college credit. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is similarly focused on adding more dual-enrollment and 'stackable' credentials. Huckabee Sanders and Abbott proposed banning DEI programs and preventing 'indoctrination' from professors. 'We must purge it from every corner of our schools and return the focus to merit,' said Abbott of the state's public universities. Thirteen governors highlighted early childhood education and care, focusing on expanding access, improving affordability and addressing workforce challenges. Democratic governors in New York, New Mexico and Kentucky promoted universal early childhood programs. Arizona Democrat Hobbs was among five state leaders from both parties who prioritized affordability, proposing the Working Families Child Care Act to lower the cost of care by two-thirds. Kehoe, a Republican, proposed a $10 million grant program to foster partnerships among Missouri employers, community organizations and child-care providers to expand access through collaborative solutions. Related In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a continuum-of-care initiative to integrate preschool and child-care services, offering grants to providers that coordinate resources like shared staffing and transportation. Several state leaders also addressed child care workforce shortages. Gov. Bill Lee proposed expanding eligibility for Tennessee's WAGES program that provides early childhood educators with annual salary supplements of up to $7,800 based on their education level, while Reynolds launched a statewide fund to encourage donations from individuals and businesses to support child care worker wages. Twelve governors highlighted workforce development and career education, focusing on expanding high school career training, strengthening industry partnerships and aligning postsecondary programs with workforce needs. More than half of these efforts target K-12 students. Several states are prioritizing career training in high schools. In Indiana, Braun plans to expand partnerships between employers and high schools, while Connecticut's Lamont is expanding the state's youth service corps, offering students internships or paid apprenticeships at local businesses. Lee seeks to double participation in Tennessee's Youth Employment Program, making it year-round to provide meaningful work experience, particularly for underserved communities. Kehoe wants a $1 million investment to expand high school career counseling and launched the Governor's Workforce of the Future Challenge to improve coordination among K-12 schools, businesses and colleges. Youngkin is expanding 'lab school' partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities specializing in health care, coding, space, maritime industries and teaching. Related Other governors are focusing on postsecondary workforce training. McMaster is requesting $95 million in lottery funds for Workforce Industry Needs Scholarships through South Carolina's technical college system. Lee has proposed the Tennessee Works Scholarship, which would cover tuition, fees and essential resources for students at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology. And McKee introduced Ready to Build, a career and technical education program at the Community College of Rhode Island, designed to create a pre-apprenticeship pathway into building trades jobs. A dozen governors discussed initiatives to improve the teaching profession, with most emphasizing higher teacher pay. Eight — primarily Republicans — proposed salary increases. McMaster accelerated the state's plan to set a $50,000 minimum salary, moving the target from 2026 to this year. Braun aims to raise the minimum salary in Indiana by $5,000, bringing it to $45,000. At least two states are prioritizing pay increases for top-performing teachers. Abbott seeks to boost average teacher pay to a 'record high' while expanding the state's Teacher Incentive Allotment program, which allows top educators to earn six-figure salaries. Similarly, Nevada's Lombardo plans to reward high-performing teachers through the Excellence in Education Fund under the Nevada Accountability in Education Act. Beshear was the only Democrat to mention teacher pay. Democrats Lamont and Wes Moore of Maryland proposed expanding affordable, debt-free pathways into teaching through apprenticeships and other means. Only 10 governors discussed curriculum and instruction initiatives for the upcoming year. Among them, Reynolds proposed one of the few major policy pushes: a comprehensive math bill aimed at identifying struggling students, providing personalized support and strengthening instruction through evidence-based professional development and high-quality teacher preparation. Lombardo proposed the Nevada Accountability in Education Act, a comprehensive initiative that would, among other things, demand 'stricter accountability, equity and excellence', focus on literacy and direct resources to struggling schools. He didn't detail how he planned to increase accountability for student results. Related Nevada is one of seven states, along with Oregon, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Michigan and Massachusetts, prioritizing standards and accountability this year. Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek committed to making school and district accountability a central focus of her 2025 agenda, proposing to increase transparency through a statewide, publicly accessible student information system, while Mississippi Republican Tate Reeves proposed raising academic standards and overhauling the state's school grading system. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has proposed the Students, Metrics and Results with Transparency (SMART) plan, which would direct investments toward underperforming schools and improve transparency to better inform parents about student performance. In Massachusetts, which recently eliminated its graduation assessment requirement, Democrat Maura Healey called for a Statewide Graduation Requirement Council to establish a new high standard. 'Students, families and employers need to know what a diploma represents,' she stated. Additionally, three Democratic governors emphasized investments in expanded learning time. McKee proposed $2.5 million in grants for out-of-school learning in Rhode Island, Kotek aims to continue funding summer programs and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wants to expand summer literacy initiatives. Meghan Gallagher of The 74 developed the interactive maps. FutureEd Research Associate Tony Tao contributed to this analysis.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Chronic Absenteeism Worst in Kindergarten, 9th and 12th Grades, State Data Shows
Chronic student absenteeism remains a significant challenge in the nation's schools. While the percentage of chronically absent students has declined from its peak of 28% in 2021-22 — when it nearly doubled from pre-pandemic levels — it remained high, at around 23% in 2023-24. But a comprehensive FutureEd analysis of state absenteeism data reveals that the attendance problem is much more severe in some grades than others, pointing to the importance of tailoring attendance strategies to students' various circumstances. Data from 22 states and the District of Columbia for the 2023-24 school year reveal significant differences across grade levels, with absenteeism particularly severe in high school. In most states, 12th graders have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, often far exceeding state averages. In Mississippi, for example, the overall absenteeism rate was 24%, but among seniors, it soared to 41%. Several other states also reported senior absenteeism rates above 40%, with rates in the District of Columbia and Oregon exceeding 50%. Equally concerning, if not more so, is the high absenteeism among ninth graders. Research consistently finds that ninth-grade success is one of the strongest predictors of high school graduation, yet many students are missing substantial amounts of school in that key transition grade. In Washington, D.C., nearly 58% of ninth graders were chronically absent in 2023-24, the highest rate of any grade. Many of these students missed far more than the threshold of two days per month that defines chronic absenteeism. More than 27% of D.C.'s ninth graders missed more than 30% of the school year — equivalent to 54 days of lost instruction. In California, about 23% of ninth graders were chronically absent, missing an average of 40 days, compared with just 6.8 days for their non-chronically absent peers. Notably, about three-fifths of the absences were unexcused. Beyond high school, kindergarten often sees the highest absenteeism rates. In some states, kindergarten absenteeism surpasses high school levels. In Hawaii, for example, the overall absenteeism rate was 25%, but in kindergarten, it was nearly 34%. Kindergarten absenteeism generally spiked during the pandemic as parents sought to protect their young children during the COVID crisis. But those rates have also shown some of the most significant recovery since then. In Michigan, rates surged from 22% pre-pandemic to 45% in 2021-22 before declining to 33% in 2023-24. California followed a similar pattern, with kindergarten absenteeism rising by 25 percentage points before recovering by 16. Related These grade-specific patterns underscore the need for targeted interventions. The factors driving absenteeism in kindergarten — more likely linked to parental challenges — differ from those affecting high schoolers, who may struggle with disengagement, work obligations or other external pressures. Effectively addressing chronic absenteeism requires a nuanced approach informed by data rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. Identifying which students are missing school, and ultimately understanding why, is essential for developing targeted, impactful solutions. Notes on the data: About half the states provide public chronic absenteeism data broken down by grade level. Most of these report data for individual grades, while others group the information into broader categories, such as elementary, middle and high school levels. FutureEd has collected grade-by-grade data for the 2023-24 school year from the 22 states and the District of Columbia, including some where data are not publicly available.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Standards Gap: Why Many Students Score Proficient on State Tests But Not on NAEP
A version of this essay appeared on the FutureEd blog. One of the most striking features of the troubling results from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress is the much lower percentage of students scoring proficient on NAEP than on many states' own 2024 standardized exams. By now, you've likely seen the results: modest improvements in math, but not enough to get students back to pre-pandemic performance levels; fourth graders fell further behind in reading; a record 34% of eighth graders scored 'below basic' in reading. In addition to the national summaries, NAEP reported student achievement in each state, where proficiency rates ranged from a high of 51% in fourth-grade math in Massachusetts to a low of 14% in eighth-grade math in New Mexico. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter States, of course, are required by federal law to administer their own annual standardized tests in math and reading. FutureEd compared students' performance on NAEP and on their states' tests and found that, for the most part, students met proficiency standards at significantly higher rates on their states' exams, especially in reading. The gaps were at least 15 percentage points in three-quarters of the states. In some, they were even greater. Seventy-two percent of Virginia's eighth graders were proficient in reading, more than double the percentage on NAEP. Iowa reported more than three-fourths of its eighth graders proficient in reading in 2024, compared with less than a third of the state's students on NAEP. We also found that the gaps increased in many states between 2022 and 2024, including in 26 states in fourth-grade reading and 22 states in eighth-grade reading. Related Why is there so much misalignment between NAEP and state results? Perhaps more than any other factor, it's lower state standards. To achieve proficiency on the national assessment, students must show 'solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter.' That's where Rhode Island, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia set their proficiency bar. But most states' fall short of that benchmark, landing within the range of NAEP's lower 'basic' standard, which requires students to demonstrate only 'partial mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills.' In Virginia — which has introduced new academic standards — and Iowa, the bar for reading falls below even that. What's more, in Florida and other states, students can be performing 'on grade level' without meeting the state's 'proficient' standard in the subject they're studying. And some states have gone further, lowering the passing grades on some or all of their standardized tests in recent years. The Oklahoma State Department of Education reported significant gains in 2024, including a 24-point jump in the percentage of students achieving proficiency in fourth-grade reading since 2022 and across-the-board improvements over pre-pandemic levels. But the gains coincided with a lowering of the state's proficiency standards, which officials didn't publicize when they released the improved test scores. State records obtained by an Oklahoma news organization revealed that the 2024 scores would have been the same as or slightly lower than 2023 results if the standards had remained the same. On NAEP, Oklahoma's proficiency rates declined in reading and improved slightly in math between 2022 and 2024, but they remained below pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, New York reported across-the-board improvements in student achievement in 2024 after lowering its proficiency threshold in 2023. But these gains were not mirrored on all of the state's 2024 NAEP results. Wisconsin also registered higher proficiency rates on its 2024 assessments after lowering its passing scores, only to have most of its NAEP scores decline in 2024. This points to the value of an independent national measure of student achievement, like NAEP. Related One of the more troubling findings from the 2024 state assessment cycle is the wide gap in proficiency rates between fourth and eighth grades, with eighth graders, on average, performing much worse than their younger counterparts. The gaps are far more pronounced in math than in reading. In New Jersey, for example, 45% of fourth graders were proficient, compared with only 19% of eighth graders. Similarly, in Washington, D.C., 29% of fourth graders and just 12% of eighth graders achieved proficiency. With many schools struggling to return to performance levels that were declining even before COVID's disruptions, With many schools struggling to return to performance levels that were declining even before COVID's disruptions, having an accurate measure of achievement is critical. Aligning more state proficiency standards with NAEP's would increase transparency and make it easier for everyone — students, parents, teachers, administrators and elected officials — to be clear on where every state needs to focus to improve educational outcomes for all students.
