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(Michael Lloyd / The Oregonian / 2013)
Oregon needs a comprehensive plan to reduce the state's high rate of chronic absenteeism, lawmakers on the House Education Committee decided this week.
The fact that Oregon schools do little to intervene despite having 94,000 students miss at least 10 percent of the school year is a huge problem, business and education leaders told the panel on Wednesday. That chronic absenteeism undermines student learning and contributes powerfully to the state's abysmal graduation rate, they said, so it urgently needs to be addressed.
Lawmakers on the committee readily agreed and on Friday approved House Bill 4002, directing the Department of Education to come up with that plan before December. Two Republicans on the nine-member committee voted against the bill, however, citing doubts that the education department is equipped to make a real difference on the ground in schools.
Frequent absenteeism has devastating consequences, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found. One Oregon study found that students who miss 10 percent of kindergarten lag, on average, almost a year behind in reading by third grade and are unlikely to ever catch up. Last year, 17 percent of Oregon kindergartners missed that much school. Studies from multiple states show that chronically absent high school students are unlikely to graduate. Yet last year, 24 percent of Oregon high schoolers, some 40,000 students, missed that much school.
The bill requiring Oregon to make a plan to address that problem is now up for consideration by the Joint Ways & Means Committee, which controls the Legislature's purse strings. One of the measure's sponsors, Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, is on that committee.
Joe Gallegos is the lead sponsor of a bill requiring the state to take action to reduce chronic absenteeism.
The bill has sponsors from both parties, with Rep. Joe Gallegos, D-Hillsboro, as lead. He said research makes it crystal clear that missing too much school leads directly to students dropping out, and he noted that Oregon has a serious problem on both fronts. Some Oregon schools manage to effectively combat absenteeism, he said, and their methods should be spread.
If his bill is approved, the education department would have to spell out three things:
>> Proven techniques schools should use to curb absenteeism.
>> The method the state will use to identify schools where absenteeism is so bad the state needs to step in.
>> Details about what the state will do to help get student attendance at those schools back on track.
The Oregonian/OregonLive brought the state's terrible chronic absenteeism problem to public attention two years ago with a five-part series, "Empty Desks." That series explored what causes so many students to miss at least 10 percent of the school year. It also highlighted proven practices used in Oregon and elsewhere to get nearly all students to regularly come to school.
The Oregon Business Association, Oregon Stand for Children and the Chalkboard Project all urged lawmakers to require the education department to take action. Chronic absenteeism is a particularly pressing problem in rural Oregon, noted Chalkboard's president, Sue Hildick.
-- Betsy Hammond