A new UChicago Consortium on School Research study released this week provides key insights on Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students’ attendance in a moment where chronic absenteeism is raising concerns across the country about students’ learning, development, and wellbeing. The findings underscore the importance of attendance for student outcomes and the ability of schools to influence how often students are present and engaged in learning.
Across Chicago and the nation, chronic absenteeism surged during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the problem has proven stubbornly persistent. When comparing pre- and post-pandemic years, the study found that more CPS middle and high school students had very high absence rates and fewer students had low absence rates post-pandemic. In the last school year alone, nearly 40% of CPS students were considered chronically absent, missing 10% or more of all school days.
This troubling trend underscores the scope of the challenge, as rising absence rates directly affect students’ academic success. “Young people, families, and educators have a lot of questions about attendance right now. This study shows how important attendance is for students’ learning. Both grades and standardized test scores go up with higher attendance, and down with lower attendance,” said Elaine Allensworth, report co-author and the Lewis-Sebring Director at the Consortium.
While outside pressures like mental health struggles, family instability, and economic insecurity continue to challenge students and impact their school attendance, the findings highlight the power schools have to create environments where students feel safe, seen, and connected. Students who felt safe at school and connected to their peers and teachers showed up more consistently, even when other barriers existed. Relationships with teachers and peers, finding value and meaning in the classroom, a sense of safety, and strong teacher-parent partnerships stood out as the most important factors tied to regular attendance, according to the study’s authors.
Co-author Marisa de la Torre, Managing Director and Senior Research Associate, noted “The finding that school climate and culture is so connected to attendance—even more so today than pre-pandemic—tells us that schools can and do influence students’ attendance. Schools concerned about attendance and chronic absenteeism, which is most schools across the country, likely need to pay more attention today than they have before to how students are experiencing school day to day.”
To help schools focus their efforts on where they can have the most impact, the Consortium will pursue a second phase of research this year to further examine a broad range of school, neighborhood, and individual factors affecting absenteeism to understand where supports could have the largest impacts.
On January 20, the Consortium will host a webinar that’s open to the public to explore why student attendance matters and what schools can do about it, featuring perspectives from city and state leaders in addition to insights from report authors.
For more than 30 years, the Consortium has provided comprehensive evidence on Chicago Public Schools through a research-practice partnership that has spanned 14 different CPS administrations. The partnership has inspired more than 70 other cities and states to create similar partnerships.