{"id":9388,"date":"2024-03-07T22:14:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T23:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9388"},"modified":"2024-03-08T00:00:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T00:00:24","slug":"many-mps-students-are-chronically-absent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9388","title":{"rendered":"Many MPS students are chronically absent"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/many-mps-students-are-chronically-absent\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Many \u2014 if not most \u2014 kids counted as enrolled in the Milwaukee Public Schools miss at least three weeks of class throughout the year. In some schools, nearly all kids are chronically absent \u2014 that is, absent on more than 10% of possible attendance days.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Empty<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

During the 2021-22 school year, the last year for which the Department of Public Instruction provides publicly available data for schools in the state and a year that most MPS classes were back in-person, the chronic absenteeism rate in the MPS district was 58%, according to the district\u2019s DPI Report Card.<\/p>\n

Those numbers are higher than in earlier years.\u00a0But chronic absenteeism is a perennial issue in the district and far worse than it is in Wisconsin on the whole.<\/p>\n

Chronic absenteeism leads to lower graduation rates from high school, lower college attendance, and lower college graduation rates, according to Matt Ladner, senior adviser for education policy at the Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is catastrophic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many of the schools with chronically absent students are at the elementary level, which is particularly disturbing.<\/p>\n

Ladner points out that in 2019, even before the pandemic, only 14% of Milwaukee fourth-graders were proficient in reading.<\/p>\n

As they progress in school, the material becomes more challenging, \u201cbut they can\u2019t read,\u201d he said. \u201cThe grade level goes up but they can\u2019t go with it. They become frustrated and feel a cruel joke is being played on them. They can\u2019t see themselves going to college. They start skipping school, and a lot drop out by eighth grade.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tragic problem for them but also for the country as a whole. Baby boomers are retiring, but younger generations are often ill-equipped to carry on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not good,\u201d said Ladner. \u201cIt is really not good. The country has a baby bust that started in 2008. They are now 16. They have had their educations completely disrupted by Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ladner clarified that. They have had their \u201ceducations wrecked,\u201d he said, \u201cby the response<\/em> to Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different districts responded differently. MPS, unlike many places, did not offer in-person classes for long stretches of time. The district closed its schools and then moved online in the spring of 2020, remained online for much of the 2020-21 school year, and returned to in-person learning for the most part in April 2021. Some schools returned to virtual learning at times after that because three cases could close an entire school. By the fall of 2021, the bulk of MPS students were back in-person.<\/p>\n

Many students, it now appears, did not attend many of the remote classes. Students were also often absent from in-person classes as well.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"