Chronic Absenteeism and its Impact on Learning
An examination using RICAS data
Damian Betebenner
The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment
July 30th, 2024
RIDE TAC Meeting
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
Chronic Absenteeism
• Chronic absenteeism (students missing 15 or more days of
school in a year) has long been a problem in America’s schools.
• In a study conducted by the United States Department of
Education, in 2015-16, over 7 million students were chronically
absent on one or more occasions.
• That’s 16 percent of the student population.
• Since the pandemic, concern about chronic absenteeism has
only grown.
Data
• Attendance data from 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 was supplied by RIDE for
analysis with RICAS data
• Attendance data supplied included student SASID, District, School,
Attendance Days Total, Total Days Absent, and a Chronically Absent Flag
• No data was included indicating calendar dates of absences.
• Attendance data was merged with RICAS data to derive summary analyses
associated with chronic absenteeism.
• Note: Student characteristics (e.g., grade attended, demographics, etc.)
come from the RICAS data.
• Attendance data covered almost all students with RICAS scores with less than
2% of students not having attendance data after merging.
Introduction
• We examine chronic absenteeism and performance in several ways
• Chronic absenteeism frequency
• Mean/Standard Deviations of Scores by year and chronic absenteeism
status.
• Mean/Median SGPs by year
• Absentee versus non-absentee students 2021-2022 and 2022-2023
• Absentee 2021-2022 versus non-absentee 2022-2023
• Non-absentee 2021-2022 versus absentee 2022-2023
Pandemic Related Academic Recovery in Rhode Island 6
Rhode Island Chronic Absenteeism Rates
Percentage Chronically Absent/Overall Grade Count
Grade 3 29.3%/9,823 22.3%/9,833
Grade 4 29.3%/9,916 21.3%/9,888
Grade 5 27.3%/10,048 21.7%/9,882
Grade 6 31.2%/10,055 22.7%/9,914
Grade 7 31.6%/10,260 27.6%/10,105
Grade 8 33.3%/10,564 29.0%/10,236
Providence Chronic Absenteeism Rates
Percentage Chronically Absent/Overall Grade Count
Grade 3 49.7%/1,668 37.0%/1,567
Grade 4 50.5%/1,623 37.2%/1,668
Grade 5 44.2%/1,569 36.9%/1,431
Grade 6 53.0%/1,578 43.4%/1,477
Grade 7 53.4%/1,540 47.0%/1,467
Grade 8 51.2%/1,812 46.6%/1,527
Frequencies
• As the data clearly show, chronic absenteeism occurs in Rhode Island at
elevated rates.
• In 2021-2022, nearly 3 in 10 students were classified as having an
instance of chronic absenteeism.
• In 2022-2023 chronic absenteeism rates dropped slightly above 20%
• The results for Providence school district are even higher.
• We next investigate RICAS performance of these students and attempt to
tease out the impact of chronic absenteeism on rates of learning.
Pandemic Related Academic Recovery in Rhode Island 9
Rhode Island Scaled Score Mean/SD ELA
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Grade 3 483.8/22.3 495.2/22.9 482.8/22.5 492.6/23.9
Grade 4 479.3/20.1 490.8/21.1 482.0/21.3 491.9/22.1
Grade 5 482.6/19.1 493.0/20.8 481.5/21.5 492.4/21.4
Grade 6 474.6/24.0 490.4/26.7 473.0/25.6 488.9/27.9
Grade 7 475.3/21.7 490.2/23.7 475.4/22.6 489.5/25.6
Grade 8 476.0/23.2 490.8/24.7 474.2/26.4 491.0/28.9
Rhode Island Scaled Score Mean/SD Mathematics
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Grade 3 476.5/23.9 493.0/25.3 478.6/24.2 492.0/25.4
Grade 4 475.8/22.7 491.4/24.0 479.5/22.9 493.0/24.3
Grade 5 476.6/19.1 489.9/21.0 479.9/19.5 491.7/20.9
Grade 6 476.9/18.5 490.4/21.0 475.9/20.2 490.1/21.7
Grade 7 471.7/19.5 487.6/23.0 473.4/20.9 487.8/24.5
Grade 8 473.4/18.4 488.0/21.6 473.5/17.9 488.1/22.9
Achievement Summaries
• The data show a consistent pattern across both years with students who
were chronically absent demonstrating much lower levels of achievement
than their non-chronically absent counterparts.
• It would be a mistake to conclude that chronic absenteeism causes this
lower achievement (this group may be lower achieving to begin with).
• To try and further tease out the effects of chronic absenteeism on learning,
we next compare the two groups on growth.
• Because growth conditions on prior achievement, this goes some way to
dealing with the confounding of achievement and group membership.
• We utilize cohort referenced SGPs as we are interested in a difference
between groups.
Pandemic Related Academic Recovery in Rhode Island 12
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count ELA
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Grade 3 — — — —
Grade 4 46.3/2,404 51.4/6,202 47.0/1,952 50.8/7,282
Grade 5 46.8/2,284 51.0/6,474 46.3/1,990 50.7/7,218
Grade 6 46.3/2,692 51.4/6,100 44.4/2,096 51.6/7,100
Grade 7 45.8/2,534 51.6/5,988 46.4/2,581 51.2/6,715
Grade 8 46.2/2,706 51.3/5,885 44.6/2,745 52.0/6,669
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count Mathematics
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Grade 3 — — — —
Grade 4 45.5/2,388 51.7/6,199 46.1/1,969 50.9/7,358
Grade 5 45.3/2,273 51.7/6,481 46.6/1,997 51.1/7,283
Grade 6 46.3/2,631 51.6/6,109 45.2/2,096 51.4/7,168
Grade 7 45.6/2,432 51.8/5,969 47.0/2,552 51.0/6,761
Grade 8 44.4/2,594 52.3/5,843 43.8/2,711 52.3/6,714
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count ELA
Economically Disadvantaged Status
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Disadvantaged 45.1/8,215 49.1/10,585 44.4/7,660 49.4/13,840
Non-
disadvantaged
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count Mathematics
Economically Disadvantaged Status
CA non-CA CA non-CA
Disadvantaged 43.7/8,005 48.6/10,581 44.4/7,606 49.6/14,075
Non-
disadvantaged
Growth Summaries
• There are moderate differences between the growth of students who were
chronically absent from those who were not in both ELA and mathematics
across all grades.
• Demographic subgroup analyses were conducted to see whether
interactions with student growth were observed (Free Reduced Lunch status
results are presented). In general, impacts on growth were fairly consistent
across subgroups.
• One possible confounding explanation in the above analyses is that the
group of student who were chronically absent demonstrated slower
learning (even if not chronically absent) than their comparison group.
• In the last analyses we use students as their own controls to exam the
impact of chronic absenteeism on student growth.
Pandemic Related Academic Recovery in Rhode Island 17
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count ELA
CA 2021-2022 vs CA 2022-2023 Status
CA 2022-2023 non-CA 2022-2023
Mean SGP/Count 2021: 45.6/5,645 Mean SGP/Count 2021: 47.3/3,881
CA 2021-2022 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 45.3/5,645 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 50.4/3,881
non-CA Mean SGP/Count 2021: 49.1/2,480 Mean SGP/Count 2021: 51.6/21,593
2021-2022 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 46.9/2,480 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 51.7/21,585
Rhode Island Mean SGP/Count Mathematics
CA 2021-2022 vs CA 2022-2023 Status
CA 2022-2023 non-CA 2022-2023
Mean SGP/Count 2021: 44.7/5,569 Mean SGP/Count 2021: 47.4/3,880
CA 2021-2022 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 45.5/5,569 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 51.4/3,880
Mean SGP/Count 2021: 48.4/2,475
non-CA Mean SGP/Count 2022: 46.1/2,475
Mean SGP/Count 2021: 52.0/21,577
2021-2022 Mean SGP/Count 2022: 51.4/21,574
Conclusions
• Chronic absenteeism is a wide-spread phenomenon in the Rhode Island
education system.
• Students who are chronically absent tend to be lower achieving that non-
chronically absent students.
• Examination of student growth over two years shows modest to moderate
impact on SGPs.
• Mean SGPs for chronically absent are, for most grades and content areas
about 4 to 6 points lower than those not chronically absent.
• When looked at longitudinally, growth decreased/increased modestly for
those switching between not chronically absent to chronically absent (and
vice-versa) in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023
• Though not a part of these analyses, it would be worth while to investigate the
impact of assessment outcomes based upon the proximity of the chronic
absence to testing time.
Pandemic Related Academic Recovery in Rhode Island 20
About this copy
Chronic Absenteeism and its Impact on Learning: An examination using RICAS data — Rhode Island Technical Advisory Committee, July 30, 2024.
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