What Michigan schools reveal about reversing chronic absenteeism

“Absenteeism is a huge and seemingly intractable problem for the nation’s public schools. And Michigan has one of the worst attendance rates in the country. That makes it a prime target for researchers. In hundreds of schools, more than 3 out of 5 students were chronically absent before the pandemic. When classes resumed, chronic absenteeism approached 4 out of 5 students in the state’s worst-attended schools. Yet a new study released in May offers hope. Researchers found that some Michigan schools appear to be substantially better than others at getting students to show up, and identified one intervention — frequent home visits to families whose children are absent from class — that was used more often by schools making a difference. Schools that were more successful in boosting attendance were much more likely to conduct these visits frequently — daily or weekly. Monthly or occasional home visits did not appear to make as much difference. Schools that visited less frequently performed about the same as those that did not conduct home visits at all. Measuring a school’s impact on attendance is tricky. If a student attends school 95 percent of the time, it can be hard to tell whether the student was already conscientious, or whether the school itself is having a positive influence. To isolate a school’s influence, researchers at the University of Michigan-Flint and Wayne State University focused on students who switched schools, such as those transitioning from middle to high school. The students themselves remained largely the same while their school environments changed so researchers could more credibly estimate whether particular schools made a difference. To account for the fact that more diligent students might be selected or funneled into higher-performing schools, researchers further adjusted their calculations to compare students with similar backgrounds and academic records as they switched schools. Researchers analyzed roughly 2,700 Michigan schools between 2022 and 2025 and divided them into quarters based on how much they improved their students’ attendance rates. Students in the top quarter of schools showed up for class about seven more days per year than similar students in the bottom quarter. Seven days is substantial since missing 18 days a year is the threshold for chronic absenteeism. Encouragingly, these attendance gains were not short-lived. The schools that made the most progress tended to show improvement across all three years of the study. But improvement does not necessarily mean success. Some of the most effective schools in the state still had chronic absenteeism rates above 40 or 50 percent, said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and lead author of the study. The schools making the most progress tend to educate many children in poverty, often clustered in the state’s poorest cities, such as Detroit, Flint and Saginaw, or in economically depressed rural areas where farms are rapidly going out of business. Across the nation, absenteeism rates are highest in poor communities where evictions, addiction, transportation problems, health issues and family responsibilities interfere with school attendance. High-poverty schools know absenteeism is a problem and have numerous programs and staff in place to address it. Researchers wanted to see if there were common strategies used by schools that were making progress. And so they combined their analysis with a Michigan school survey where principals disclosed how they were tackling the problem. That’s how the value of frequent home visits rose to the top, which also corroborates other research in Connecticut . An intensive home visiting program to boost attendance has also shown strong results there. Still, these visits are not a guaranteed solution. Some Michigan schools conducting weekly home visits saw no improvement in attendance — or even worsening absenteeism. In other words, while many schools using frequent home visits were successful, others were not. “They’re certainly no silver bullet,” said Singer. Singer says that researchers need to dig deeper into what makes home visits effective since they are expensive and time-intensive. Possible factors include who conducts them, what time of day they occur, whether they are scheduled or surprise visits, and what conversations take place. Schools in the study are trying dozens of other interventions, but the researchers didn’t detect a strong connection between most of those efforts and improved attendance. These other interventions include early warning systems, letters home, automated text messages and phone calls. Schools that had support from district personnel, such as truancy officers or liaisons, did not do better than schools without these staffers. Personalized and frequent text messages were modestly more common among more schools with improving attendance. Researchers also found that schools making more progress were slightly more likely to report actively helping families address outside barriers such as housing and transportation. The correlation between interventions and schools that are effective in boosting attendance is a clue about what works, but the researchers cannot say whether the interventions are driving the attendance improvements. It could be that the most effective schools are doing other things not captured in the survey, such as hiring especially skilled teachers or building stronger relationships with students that make school feel worth attending. The findings are a reminder that “best practices” recommendations often overstate what researchers actually know. Schools can make a meaningful difference in attendance, but identifying genuinely successful schools is hard, isolating why they succeed is even harder, and simple solutions rarely hold up under scrutiny. Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org . This story about addressing absenteeism in Michigan was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters . The post What Michigan schools reveal about reversing chronic absenteeism appeared first on The Hechinger Report .

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