David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
I wonder why WA, OR, and AK have such a high percentage of chronically-absent students. Washington, especially, one thinks of, or at least I do, being highly educated. Maybe that's just around the Seattle area. Is it the Native Americans who are ditching school? I guess I could Google it. Naa... it's more fun to just speculate.
Just looked into that a bit and found something at first surprising. As expected, rates are higher for poorer students and those in rural areas. However even in their urban areas, rates are relatively high versus other states. Apparently many students from earliest grades fall behind that correlates with poor attendance and poor reading skills. By time they reach high school they are so far behind that hopelessness sets in. On another website noticed many had become early cigarette smokers. Suspect such kids hang out on the sly together outside school reinforcing each others poor attitudes including false belief such is cool.
This is an in depth article with charts on why Oregon had one of worst chronic absenteeism rates in the nation, somewhat dated as that state has improved since getting serious about turning it around.
https://www.oregonlive.com/projects/absent/
snippet:
School-going habits “get ingrained early,” he said. When a family expects a child to attend only periodically, he said, that needs to be corrected — and fast.
Making attendance a habit has a double payoff, he added. Students who attend regularly in the primary grades are more likely to do so all through school. They are also are primed to learn to read well.
That’s crucial because by middle school, nearly everything in school is set up to reward those who can read and frustrate those who can’t. “When students get older, they are in control of whether they’re in class,” he said. “A lot of the absenteeism is due to lack of success.”