State and national school accountability policies situate preventing chronic absenteeism on par with meeting state standardized test benchmarks. We question relying on school attendance as both a component of accountability policies and a means of enhancing equity in schools. Our research suggests out-of-school factors unrelated to missed…

Chronic absenteeism is the most extreme form of truancy and includes students who miss more than 10% of the school year (Conry & Richards, 2018). The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2015 required states to choose a non-cognitive measure to evaluate school performance. Tennessee has chronic absenteeism selected…

Nowell Academy in Providence, Rhode Island primarily serves pregnant and parenting, overaged, and undercredited high school students, 96% of whom have had past difficulties with consistent attendance. Nowell provides incentives for students to come to school by offering daycare services, learning experiences that connect curriculum to the real…

For the past 20 years Massachusetts has used a high-stakes, test-based accountability system for the state's public schools. The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) are standardized tests administered in Grades 3-10 which account for the majority of district and school accountability measures, and the Grade 10 tests serve as an…

Education is a transformative force with the potential to reshape socio-political structures, promote equity, and drive social progress. However, in Pakistan, elite capture presents a significant challenge to the education system, spreading disparities and restricting access to quality education by marginalised communities. Therefore, our…

As state school-based accountability systems have become more complex and increasingly comprehensive, school district leaders have struggled with the balance of managing limited school district funding while focusing on improving student academic achievement as quantified by state-mandated testing results. The amount of a school district's…

Few empirical studies describe the interior world of alternative school settings. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 11 alternative school students, discussing factors that contribute to absenteeism as well as the circumstances that led them to enroll in an alternative setting. We find that students' regular attendance is…

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to explore a possible relationship between the number of students in grades 9-12 classified as chronically absent and the inclusion of the Chronically Out of School indicator in Tennessee's accountability model for schools and school districts. Using publicly available data from the…