Tie high school graduation to student attendance and passing grades

A little over a decade ago, Chicago Public Schools began tracking the number of freshmen failing two or more classes who had a 10 percent absence rate or more than eighteen unexcused absences in a year. Data from the Consortium on Chicago School Research showed that, once students hit this threshold, their likelihood of dropping out skyrocketed.

Today, thanks to this system of tracking freshmen attendance and grades, Chicago’s high school graduation rate is up more than 20 percentage points and is approaching the national average, despite having a student population that is much poorer than the nation as a whole...