2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

266 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
and intervention strategies that could significantly improve outcomes,
especially for our most vulnerable children.
The good news is that chronic absence can be reduced if schools, community,
and parents and families work together to monitor the data, identify
and address common barriers to getting to school, and nurture a local
culture of regular attendance. This essay describes why paying attention
to chronic absence matters. It also discusses how community-level practice,
policy, and evaluation can make a recognizable difference and why
neighborhood or other place-based initiatives should make monitoring
and addressing chronic absence an integral component of their work.
What Led to the Discovery of Chronic Absence?
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s deep commitment to a data-driven
approach to improving outcomes for children, families, and neighborhoods
led to the discovery of chronic absence as a key challenge to be
addressed. The foundation recognized that reading proficiently by the end
of third grade is critical to ensuring children have the chance to be economically
successful when they reach adulthood. To inform their emerging
approach to advancing educational outcomes for children in the Making
Connections neighborhood initiative, Annie E. Casey Foundation Executive
Vice President Ralph Smith asked me to find research and best practices
that could answer two questions: Does missing too much school in
the early grades contribute to low levels of third-grade reading proficiency,
especially among young children in low-income neighborhoods? What are
promising or proven practices for improving attendance?
The key to answering these questions lay in finding and mining
local and national data sources that could deepen our understanding
of the prevalence, impact, and potential causes of chronic absence. The
National Center for Children and Poverty painted a national picture
using attendance data gathered through the Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study–Kindergarten Cohort. Equally important, a rich collaboration
with the Urban Institute, the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership
(NNIP), the National Center for School Engagement, and Metis
Associates supported gathering and analyzing attendance data from nine
localities. Documenting for the first time the prevalence, consequences,
and potential causes of chronic absence, the report Present, Engaged, and
Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in