Elaine Allensworth speaks with The Chicago Report about Connection, Trust, and Learning Student Attendance in the Middle and High School Grades Following the COVID-19 Pandemic...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Absenteeism increased dramatically not only at Chicago Public Schools, but school districts around the country following the COVID-19 pandemic. A new University of Chicago study has some surprising results on what drives attendance. 

Students at the Back of the Yards César Chavez Elementary School show up. The attendance rate at the CPS school is over 96%...

Event overview: 

Student attendance: why it matters and what schools can do about it 
New research insights and perspectives from the field. 

Low attendance and high rates of chronic absenteeism are raising concerns across the country about students’ learning, development, and well-being. 

New research from the UChicago Consortium and IWERC provides important insights on students’ attendance, grades, and test scores—and how they are connected to schools’ culture/climate: 

To help schools better understand where they can have the most impact on increasing student attendance and achievement, the study’s authors said they are planning another phase of research to examine a broad range of school, neighborhood and individual factors affecting absenteeism. 

Middle and high school attendance still matters enormously post-COVID, and schools can do a lot to improve it, according to a new report from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research. 

The number of middle school and high school students in Chicago missing an astronomical 18 days or more of school shot up during the pandemic and has remained stubbornly high, but a new study finds that some city schools are more successful than others in getting teens to show up. 

The University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research finds students attend more when they feel safe, have friends at their school and have strong relationships with teachers...

Key Findings 

• Absenteeism increased considerably in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic:
  • More students had very high absence rates, and fewer students had low absence rates.
• Students’ academic achievement is still strongly related to their attendance.
  • Attendance matters as much as ever: students with lower attendance rates have lower grades and test scores.
• Schools’ absence rates varied considerably, including among schools serving similar students from similar neighborhoods.
• School climate is strongly associated with

A bachelor’s degree is the best pathway to a good job in Illinois — and while alternative pathways can lead to good jobs, they are more inequitable, according to a new report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative and the UChicago Consortium on School Research. 

Some non-college pathways also led to good jobs, such as construction and agriculture, but they heavily favored white and Latino men...

La mayoría de las veces, las agendas política, de seguridad y de finanzas terminan acaparando la atención mediática y de la opinión pública sobre otras cuestiones de igual trascendencia como lo es la educación. Este tema llena los titulares de cuando en cuando, especialmente durante los llamados estudiantiles y del magisterio a la movilización social, en la que reclaman justamente más recursos y mejor infraestructura.