Dive Brief:
- The California Department of Education is starting to collect data on chronic absenteeism, and some education experts in the state want the State Board of Education to consider the data in regard to federal accountability.
- March 8-9 is the next board meeting, and current plans call for a discussion of new and old accountability metrics in relation to the new Every Student Succeeds Act.
- Absenteeism data will begin to be collected by the state in late spring 2017, Ed Source reports.
Dive Insight:
Under ESSA, states are now required to collect and report data on chronic absenteeism. Districts need to plan accordingly and see if absenteeism is going to be a significant challenge for local schools.
The announcement from the California Department of Education comes just a week after Attorney General Kamala Harris unveiled a new plan to combat the issue, including a free online toolkit aimed at educating the parents of young schoolchildren about the negative effects of missing class. In the 2014-15 school year, more than a fifth of California elementary school students missed 10% of school days.
California is also considering other new ways of evaluating school performance, with plans under way to scrap the use of API indices for grading schools. The Innovation Lab Network (ILN), a project affiliated with the Council of Chief State School Officers, is also helping 12 states develop new accountability systems.
School administrators should also note that the Obama administration is making its own big push to tackle the issue via a different approach: mentoring. The new My Brother's Keeper Success Mentors Initiative will begin in ten cities, where mentors will meet with students three times per week.