David+S.+Schwartz

DAVID SCHWARTZ'S WIKI SPACE. This wiki is designed to help educators who are looking for stats and information regarding student absenteeism and how that affects student learning. It is also a resource page for other educators to add new links as they become available.
 * HOW STUDENT ABSENTEEISM AND DISABILITY AFFECTS STUDENT LEARNING**

I started this wiki based on a problem that I assessed in my school that centered around students with disabilities that incurred behavioral issues in school which led to subsequent absences. I was trying to see what affect those absences had on their overall learning. 

**__›How Attendance Affects Student Learning__ **
Here are some good stats for people looking to write a paper on Absenteeism.

Johnston, Robert C., **As Studies Stress Link to Scores, Districts Get Tough on Attendance**, October 18, 2000. Education Week. Retrieved from the internet October 15, 2008[| http://edweek.com/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=07truant.h20]
 * Education Week

//"In Minneapolis, a recent study found that students who were in class 95 percent of the time were twice as likely to pass state language-arts tests as students with attendance rates of 85 percent.//"

Taking A Second Look At School Attendance, retrieved from the internet October 16, 2008 [| http://www.ncpa.org/pi/edu/pd062700c.html]
 * National Center for Policy Analysis


 * When data experts analyzed the performance of Rochester, N.Y., students on the statewide English Regents exam, they found that students scoring in the 85th to 100th percentile attended school 93 percent of the time.
 * Students scoring in the 65th to 84th percentile attended classes 91 percent of the time.
 * Students who attended school only 85 percent of the time scored below the 54th percentile.
 * School officials in Minneapolis looked at eighth-grade scores on a basic-skills test and found that students attending school 95 percent of the time passed at twice the rate of those attending only 85 percent of the time.

From WestEd, one of the nation's regional educational laboratories. retrieved from the internet October 16, 2008. [| http://www.wested.org/wested/papers/timeandlearning/TAL_PV.html]
 * A Research Article that is enlightening about whether or not school attendance does in fact affect student learning.**
 * Improving Student Achievement by Extending School: Is It Just a Matter of Time?

Lamdin,-Douglas-J. **__Evidence of Student Attendance as an Independent Variable in Education Production Functions__**. 1996 Journal-of-Educational-Research; v89 n3 p155-62 Jan-Feb 1996 ISSN: 0022-0671 ABSTRACT: Most student performance studies using the production function or input-output approach do not consider student attendance as an independent variable. Data from Baltimore County public elementary schools indicate that student attendance positively and consistently correlates to standardized achievement test performance. Student socioeconomic status is also an important factor. (SM)
 * ERIC Database Search**: **[|www.eric.ed.gov]**



NWREL - (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory) [|www.nwrel.org]
This is a great resource for teachers who are seeking information and research on issues related to education. [I have used this website a lot in my supervisory classes]

Strategies to Encourage Attendance, NWREL; Increasing Student Attendance: Strategies from Research and Practice. June 2004.
Retrieved from the internet October 16, 2008 http://www.nwrel.org/request/2004june/strategies.html ABSTRACT: Once school staff members have reached a more complete understanding of why students are not attending school, they can investigate what strategies might be the most helpful for their students. A review of the relevant research and professional literature reveals a number of views and solutions for increasing attendance. Much research, especially research on truancy prevention, views attendance problems as the result of a "functional problem," such as self-motivation, peer relations, mental health, substance abuse, social skills, poverty, and discipline. Interventions are designed to treat these problems by using counseling and family mediation, involving law enforcement, and providing social services (see, for example, Dembo & Turner, 1994).



__**›Drop-Outs **__
This is a great article from the Star-Ledger that really pops out at you, $4.9 billion in lost lifetime earnings!!!

Mooney, John. **Corzine, educators seek solutions to state's growing high school dropout rate.** The Star-Ledger, October 15, 2008. retrieved from the internet October 17, 2008 http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/corzine_educators_seek_solutio.html

"With one in five New Jersey high school students dropping out-- and maybe twice that in some urban districts -- Gov. Jon Corzine and other top officials launched a campaign today to help devise some solutions."

"Today, officials rattled off statistics in an effort to get at the real cost of the estimated 19,000 students who drop out of school: $4.9 billon in lost lifetime earnings, $258 million in annual health care costs and others."



**__›Disability is a Factor in Attendance __**
According to the Child Trends Data Bank, Disability is a factor in student absenteeism. Retrieved October 10, 2008 http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators/106StudentAbsenteeism.cfm

Students classified as having a disability are more likely than students without a disability to have missed three or more school days within the past month. In 2005, 29 percent of eighth graders with a disability reported missing three or more school days within the past month, compared with 20 percent of students without a disability. retrieved October 10, 2008 http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/figures/106-Figure-2.gif

Among 8th-graders, 45 percent reported perfect attendance, 35 percent reported missing 1–2 days of school, and 20 percent reported missing 3 or more days. Between 1994 and 2005, these patterns of absenteeism remained relatively stable. For example, there was no measurable change in the percentage of 4th- or 8th-graders reporting perfect attendance. Likewise, there was no measurable change in the percentage of 4th-graders reporting that they were absent from school for 3 or more days, though for 8th-graders this percentage declined from 22 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2005. For most of the years observed, 4th-graders were more likely than 8th-graders to have perfect attendance, and 8th-graders were more likely than 4th-graders to miss 3 or more days of school. In 2005, rates of absenteeism varied by certain student characteristics. In both grades, students were more likely to miss 3 or more days of school if a language other than English was spoken at home, if the student was an English language learner, or if the student was classified as having a disability (see [|table 24-2]). Additionally, in both grades, a lower percentage of Asian/Pacific Islander students and a higher percentage of American Indian students reported missing 3 or more days of school than their peers in other racial and ethnic groups. Students who were eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch were more likely to be absent from school for 3 or more days than those who were not eligible. This pattern among students eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch has remained stable for both 4th- and 8th-grade students between 1998 and 2005. retrieved October 10, 2008: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2006/section3/indicator24.asp Table 24-2 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2006/section3/table.asp?tableID=480

Retrieved October 11, 2008 from

[|Archived: Focus on Learning: Promising Strategies for Improving ...]
 //It was obvious the atmosphere was just a zoo. Kids all over the halls, getting high in the stairwells, drug deals going on left and right. It was just a circus. Attendance was atrocious, dropout rate was high, test scores low. Everything was negative. So just one step in the building and you knew that something was wrong.// //**--A Baltimore guidance counselor's description of her school environment**//

//**MORE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS SAY STUDENT ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS ARE SERIOUS PROBLEMS.** Besides lack of parent involvement, the school problems viewed as serious by at least 10 percent of public school teachers included student apathy, poverty, student absenteeism, student disrespect for teachers, parental alcoholism and/or drug abuse, and student tardiness. Behaviors and attitudes of students were more likely to be seen as problematic by teachers at the secondary level than by teachers at the elementary level. Parent alcoholism, on the other hand, was described as "serious" as often by elementary teachers as by secondary teachers and poverty was described as "serious" more often by elementary teachers. Private school teachers were much less likely to report that any of the above problems were "serious." The percentage of private school teachers rating each problem as "serious" ranged from .1 percent for student possession of weapons to 4.3 percent for lack of parent involvement.// code //**TABLE 3.--Percent of teachers who said that each problem was a serious problem in their schools**

Elementary     Secondary ---   Public teachers Poverty                     18.9           15.2 Parental alcoholism         11.6           12.5

Student apathy              10.4           31.7 Student absenteeism          6.1           22.9

Private teachers Poverty                      1.4            2.6 Parental alcoholism          1.4            3.0

Student apathy               1.7            6.5 Student absenteeism           .7            4.5//

code //retrieved October 10, 2008 from: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/web/93149.asp

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//<span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(14, 12, 12)">Sometimes Absenteesim is mandated by law and therefore not the fault of the student, such as zero tolerance policies that force schools to keep children out of school for offenses that were previously discretionary. <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0)">

//<span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0)">__**›ZERO TOLERANCE**__ //

 * The authors address one of the issues raised in my needs assessment related to students absenteeism that is caused by behavioral issues that involve students with the law.**

//Skiba, Russ and Peterson, Reece (1999). **The Dark Side of Zero Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe Schools?**. Phi Delta Kappan, Page 2.

In 1994 the federal government stepped in to mandate the policy nationally when President Clinton signed the Gun-Free Schools Act into law.// (1) //This law mandates an expulsion of one calendar year for possession of a weapon and referral of students who violate the law to the criminal or juvenile justice system. It also provides that the one-year expulsions may be modified by the "chief administrative officer" of each local school district on a case-by-case basis.// (1) The original definition of "firearm" as contained in the Gun-Free Schools Act did not include weapons other than firearms. Later amendments and state policies have since expanded the definition to include any instrument intended to be used as a weapon.

//According to the article, in 1996-97 survery 25 percent of principals stated that Student Absenteesim was a moderate or serious problem in their schools.// Source: Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-1997 (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 98-030, 1998).

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//**__<span style="color: rgb(247, 115, 75)">›Uniforms __**//
This article poses a counterpoint to the whole school uniform debate, it suggests that school uniforms do not have an impact on attendance and behavior problems.

//Brunsma, David L. and Rockquemore, Kerry A. (Sept 1998). **Effects of Student Uniforms on Attendance, Behavior Problems, Substance Abuse and Academic Achievement**. The Journal of Educational Research. pages 53-62. retrieved from the internet october 16, 2008.

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//<span style="color: rgb(244, 115, 52)">__**›At-Risk Behaviors**__ //
The best part of this study was that it was hard to actually conduct it because they were trying to capture students that were frequently absent from school. But a good resource nontheless.

Sally Guttmacher, PhD, Beth C. Weitzman, PhD, Farzana Kapadia, MPH and Sharon L. Weinberg, PhD//, February 2002, Vol 92, No. 2,// //**Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors: Reducing the Bias of Absenteeism**////| American Journal of Public Health 235-237 © 2002 [|American Public Health Association] Retrieved from the internet October 16, 2008 http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/2/235////////////////
 * Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors: Reducing the Bias of Absenteeism**
 * Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors: Reducing the Bias of Absenteeism**

Sally Guttmacher is with the Department of Health Studies, New York University School of Education, New York City. Beth C. Weitzman is with the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University. At the time of this study, Farzana Kapadia was with the Department of Health Studies, New York University School of Education. Sharon Weinberg is with the Department of Humanities and the Social Sciences, New York University School of Education. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Sally Guttmacher, PhD, New York University School of Education, Department of Health Studies, 726 Broadway, Fifth Floor, New York, NY 10003 (e-mail: sally.guttmacher@nyu.edu).

Objectives. This investigation examined the effectiveness of intensive efforts to include frequently absent students in order to reduce bias in classroom-based studies. Methods. Grade 10 students in 13 New York City high schools (n = 2049) completed selfadministered confidential surveys in 4 different phases: a 1-day classroom capture, a 1-day follow-up, and 2 separate 1-week follow-ups. Financial incentives were offered, along with opportunities for out-of-classroom participation. Results. Findings showed that frequently absent students engaged in more risk behaviors than those who were rarely absent. Intensive efforts to locate and survey chronically absent students did not, however, significantly alter estimates of risk behavior. Weighting the data for individual absences marginally improved the estimates. Conclusions. This study showed that intensive efforts to capture absent students in classroom-based investigations are not warranted by the small improvements produced in regard to risk behavior estimates.