|
|
THE STATE
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY
OF THE STATE OF |
|
TO: |
Full Board |
|
FROM: |
Jean C. Stevens |
|
SUBJECT: |
Closing the Achievement Gap: Setting Targets for High School
Attendance |
|
DATE: |
October 11, 2006 |
|
STRATEGIC
GOAL: |
Goals 1 and 2 |
|
AUTHORIZATION(S): |
|
SUMMARY
Issue for Discussion
Should Department staff develop in more detail a proposal for setting targets for attendance as part of the Regents strategy for improving high schools?
Reason(s) for Consideration
Review of policy.
Proposed Handling
This question will come before the Board in October.
Procedural History
The Regents have received and discussed proposed strategies to close the gap in high schools and improve graduation rates. Those discussions have identified potential actions to implement the strategies.
Background Information
Among the potential strategies to close the gap in high schools is to set
targets for attendance for all students. Currently,
Recommendation
Staff recommend that the Regents review the conceptual proposal on setting targets for attendance and determine whether staff should more fully develop the proposal.
Timetable for Implementation
Based on the direction of the Regents, actions/discussions would be scheduled on the 24-month Regents calendar.
Setting Targets for
Attendance
Background Information
Among the potential strategies to close the gap in high schools is setting targets for attendance for all students. The Regents could use the accountability provisions under the Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) process to establish consequences for districts and schools that do not make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in reaching these targets.
This is an ideal time for the
Board of Regents to consider setting targets for high school attendance rates
because
Department staff believe that attendance is an important measure of school performance, first, because it is a measure of time-on-task. Students who are not in attendance are missing valuable opportunities to learn. Second, low attendance may indicate that students believe that school is irrelevant, unsafe, or unwelcoming. To improve attendance, schools must provide a safe, welcoming environment where students are actively engaged in learning and understand the importance of school achievement in ensuring their future success. Finally, low attendance may indicate a high incidence of family and personal problems that require outreach to the students and families by school nurses, counselors, psychologists, and social workers, and cooperation with other social agencies. Attendance can serve as a proxy measure of the success of schools in addressing these issues.
To establish attendance rate standards, the Board must make three critical decisions:
· What should the State standards or goals for elementary/middle level and high school attendance rate be?
· How much improvement should schools below that standard be required to make each year?
· Should the high school goal be used as part of the Schools under Registration Review (SURR) process, the NCLB accountability system or both?
Attendance
Rates: Background Data
Table
I shows the distribution of attendance rates for elementary and middle level
schools. The data show that in
2004-05 nearly half of the schools in the State had attendance rates below
95%.
Table
1
Distribution
of Attendance Rates for Elementary/Middle Level
Schools
|
Attendance
Rate Interval |
Number of
Schools |
Percent of
Schools |
| below
85 | ||
|
8 |
0.3% |
|
| 85.0
to 89.9% | ||
|
245 |
7.7% |
|
| 90.0
to 92.4% | ||
|
458 |
14.5% |
|
| 92.5
to 94.9% | ||
|
806 |
25.4% |
|
| 95.0%
and above | ||
|
1,652 |
52.1% |
|
| Total | ||
|
3,169 |
100.0% |
A smaller percentage of high
schools than elementary or middle level schools have attendance rates at or
above 95 percent. Less than 40 percent of high schools had attendance rates of
95 percent or higher in 2003-04.
Table
2
Distribution
of Attendance Rates for High
Schools
|
Attendance
Rate Interval |
Number of
Schools |
Percent of
Schools |
| Below
75% | ||
|
21 |
2.2% | |
|
75.0 to
79.9% |
33 |
3.5% |
|
80.0 to
84.9% |
67 |
7.0% |
| 85.0
to 89.9% | ||
|
87 |
9.1% |
|
| 90.0
to 92.4% | ||
|
110 |
11.5% |
|
| 92.5
to 94.9% | ||
|
287 |
30.0% |
|
| 95.0%
and above | ||
|
351 |
36.7% |
|
| Total | ||
|
956 |
100.0% |
As Figure 1 shows, high need districts have relatively low attendance rates, contributing to their low performance.
Similarly high schools in all High Need
Categories—New York City, Large City Districts, Urban-Suburban Districts, and
Rural Districts—have lower attendance rates than high schools in Average and Low
Need Districts (Figure 2). However, it should be noted that the gaps between
attendance rates in high and low need districts at the high school level are
significantly greater than they are at the elementary/middle school level.
Since its inception, the Chapter 655 Report
has documented the correlation between student attendance and achievement. As a general rule, the higher the
average daily attendance in a school, the higher the percentage of students
demonstrating proficiency on State assessments and the higher the graduation
rate. For example, Department data for the 2001 cohort (Figure 3) shows a strong
relationship between high school average daily attendance and graduation rate.
Proposed
Standard for Elementary/Middle and High School
Attendance:
Staff proposes to set the standard for
attendance at 94 percent. Schools below that standard would be required to
decrease the gap between their annual attendance rate and the State standard by
10 percent each year to make adequate yearly progress. The formula would
be:
2005-06 Attendance Rate + (94% minus
2005-06 Attendance Rate) X 10% = 2007-08 Attendance Rate
Target
The application of this formula in 10 sample
schools is shown in Attachment A.
Under this proposal, a school’s target for a
given year would never be lower than its target for the previous year,
regardless of performance. The minimum target increase for a school below the
State standard would be one percentage point. Schools with attendance rates
between 84 and 94 percent would be required to improve their attendance by one
percentage point per year. Schools
below 84 percent would be required to improve by an additional 0.1 percentage
point for each percentage point that their attendance rate fell below 84
percent. Thus a school with an attendance rate of 80 percent would be required
to improve by 1.4 percentage points.
For a school to improve its attendance rate by one percentage point, the
average student would need to attend school for 1.85 additional days each year.
At the elementary/middle level, schools that
did not make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years would be
identified as schools in need of improvement under Title I or schools requiring
academic progress under the State accountability system. At the high school
level, schools that did not make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive
years would risk identification as a SURR schools.
Consequences for
Schools That Fail To
High School Attendance Rate is proposed to
be used to identify Schools Under Registration Review (SURR). The Commissioner
would identify those schools with graduation rates farthest from State
standards. SURRs are given
performance targets by the Commissioner that they must meet or risk having their
registration revoked. Upon identification, SURR schools are subject to a
registration review visit conducted by an external team led by a District
Superintendent. Upon completion of
the visit by the team, the school is required to develop a school improvement
plan and the district to develop a corrective action plan. Each SURR is assigned an SED liaison who
is on-site from one day per week to one day per month, depending on which part
of the process the school is implementing. SURRs are eligible to receive a State
funded SURR grant and receive the highest priority for support from the
In addition to the resources identified
above, the budget request currently under discussion calls for the governor and
legislature to provide $13 million in the first year and $39 million upon full
implementation to fund a program of academic intervention teams and
distinguished educators.
Under the proposal, the Commissioner would
assign an academic intervention team to each school and district in the State
that is identified for corrective action.
The purpose of the intervention teams is to build the capacity of local
educational agencies to successfully undertake corrective actions that result in
improved student achievement consistent with State standards. Teams made up of administrators and
content experts would provide targeted technical assistance in at-risk
schools. A substantial portion of
this proposed funding would support schools identified for graduation
results.