Science Interest and Classroom Culture Survey (Singelton et al., 2023)
Category: Student Well-Being
Chronic absenteeism remains a persistent challenge in Michigan and across the country in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic (Singer, 2024). While schools have expanded their efforts to improve attendance—implementing a wide range of practices, systems, and supports (Singer & Lenhoff, 2025)—there is still limited evidence about which of these strategies are most effective in improving student attendance. In particular, it remains difficult to disentangle the role of school-based efforts from the broader social and economic conditions that shape attendance, which makes it challenging to identify which strategies are most likely to make a difference.
This report provides new evidence on the relationship between school attendance strategies and student attendance outcomes in Michigan. We use longitudinal administrative data to construct a school-level attendance value-added measure, which isolates schools’ contributions to student attendance after accounting for differences in student populations and contexts. We then use survey data from school leaders to examine how variation in attendance practices, organizational systems, staffing, and leadership corresponds with differences in attendance value-added across schools. This approach allows us to examine the extent to which various strategies are associated with positive attendance outcomes.
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Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/qvcs-9w56
