Low-income, Black and Latino students are missing school at elevated rates
CHICAGO – After the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted schooling in 2020, students began missing more school, all while achievement scores declined. A new report from the Illinois Workforce & Education Research Collaborative, part of the University of Illinois System’s Discovery Partners Institute, shows the critical importance of improving attendance. The report finds that attendance strongly relates to student achievement, even more now than prepandemic.
As part of its Learning Renewal Series, IWERC examined how absenteeism has changed since the onset of the pandemic for different grade levels and student groups, as well as the implications of these increases for student learning.
Key findings include:
- Students in high school increased their absenteeism by more than five days.
- Students in urban areas, especially in Chicago Public Schools, greatly increased the number of days they were absent.
- Black and Latino students saw the largest increases in absenteeism after the pandemic.
- Test scores declined with each additional day students were absent from school, especially in math.
- The relationship between absenteeism and test scores intensified over time. Controlling for student characteristics, the relationship between test scores and absenteeism remains as strong as, or stronger than, it was prepandemic.
The report uses data for all students in Illinois from 2019 to 2023 to describe absenteeism trends before, during and after the height of the pandemic. The researchers show that while attendance improved in 2023, absenteeism rates remain much higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic began. And this is particularly true for high school students in urban areas, where more than 50% of students are chronically absent — that is, they miss more than 10% (18 days) of the school year.
Mariana Barragan Torres, author of the report, said, “Given the current negative trends in student learning among the high school grades in Illinois, measured by the SAT, promoting regular school attendance seems vital to foster growth in student learning in grades 9 through 12.”
“This new report confirms that school attendance still matters, and, in fact, it matters more than in prior years,” said Meg Bates, director of IWERC. “While all students’ absenteeism increased since 2020, it is especially concerning that students who have historically been marginalized in our education system are missing school at exceptional rates.”
The full report is available here: https://dpi.uillinois.edu/applied-research/iwerc/current-projects/learning-renewal/
For additional report findings, contact Mariana Barragan Torres at marianab@uillinois.edu