Amid all the recently good news in Mississippi about rising test scores, particularly in the younger grades, and record-high graduation rates, there is a disconcerting trend in the state’s public schools that seems contradictory to the progress.
A large number of children are chronically not showing up for school.
This week the office of State Auditor Shad White released a report that documents how large the problem has gotten in Mississippi since the arrival of COVID-19.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the school year. Research shows that when that happens, students are much more likely to struggle academically and are at much higher risk of dropping out.
Before the pandemic, 14% of Mississippi students were chronically absent. Last year, even after the threat of COVID-19 had diminished and school operations had returned to normal, the state’s rate was 24.7%.
While every state struggled with kids being kept at home during and even after the pandemic, the situation post-pandemic, according to the auditor’s report, has been much worse in Mississippi than its neighbors. Mississippi’s increase in the number of students chronically absent comes to more than 76%. The next closest states were Tennessee at almost 58% and Alabama at 55%. Louisiana’s was 26% higher, while Arkansas actually saw a decrease of more than 5%.
The state auditor, whose job is mainly to crunch financial numbers, says if Mississippi could get its chronic absentee rate down to pre-pandemic levels, it would save the state billions of dollars on future costs of incarceration, social services and other outlays that are a direct result of people not completing their high school education.
The auditor’s report provides several recommendations, some of it gleaned from others’ research, for how Mississippi’s school districts and the Legislature might tackle the problem.
Two of them are of special note. One might incentivize school districts and individual schools to do more about the problem, and another might entice the students’ themselves to show up for class.
The first proposal would include attendance as one of the factors used to determine the accountability grades that schools and school districts are assigned. According to the auditor’s report, at least 36 states take attendance into account with their accountability grades.
The other proposal would link school attendance with being able to get a driver’s license. Mississippi law presently only requires that minors applying for a driver’s license be enrolled in school. It says nothing about whether it matters whether they actually attend classes. In the neighboring states of Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama, minors must actually attend school in order to earn and keep driving privileges, according to the auditor’s report.
Mississippi’s Department of Education is not oblivious to the issue of chronic absenteeism. It has been tracking the data and trying to raise public awareness about the issue.
But more than an information campaign directed at parents and students could be necessary. It might take legislation or changes in education policies. The state auditor’s report should help stimulate that discussion among policymakers.
