Phi Delta Kappan

Kappan’s editor-in-chief shares highlights from the November 2024 issue, which focuses on student attendance and absenteeism.

Additional resources and discussion questions related to the November 2024 Kappan theme, “Attendance and Absenteeism.”

In this regular column, Kappan authors recommend books that have influenced their thinking about education. In this issue, James Paul Gee recommends The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation by Jacques Rancière, and Ayesha Hashim recommends Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality by Erica O. Turner.

As chronic absenteeism fails to ease from post-pandemic high levels, schools can turn to many reforms to promote school attendance. Commonly recommended strategies involve increasingly targeted and intensive tiers of interventions. Researcher Thomas S. Dee writes that the research base of many of these interventions is not strong. Schools facing financial and capacity restraints may have difficulty putting interventions in place. Dee suggests that educators obtain information on attendance barriers in their schools and base solutions on those data. Sharing information about attendance with families is one promising intervention.

Families are critical partners in addressing chronic absenteeism. Drawing from research, authors Thomas J. Capretta, Jingyang (Max) Zhang, and Barbara J. Boone present four throughlines and six strategies for schools to improve attendance by building trust and partnering with families. In view of chronic absenteeism’s association with negative academic and life outcomes and disproportionate impact on underserved student populations, addressing absenteeism with families as partners is essential in building shared expectations and identifying unique solutions to unique barriers. The authors outline practical, accessible, and research-informed guidance for schools to tackle the persistent challenge of student attendance in education through high-quality partnerships with parents and community members.

The pandemic responses of Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, North Carolina, offer insights on how navigating the COVID-19 crisis can inform district and school practices to curb student absenteeism and support student engagement in learning. Guilford used ESSER money to develop pandemic response programs that addressed wide-ranging and shifting student needs stemming from the pandemic. Authors Ayesha K. Hashim, Clark Wright, Sonya Stephens, and Miles Davison discuss seven key insights into how the district transitioned those programs to help engage students after the pandemic while working to ease absentee rates.

Because housing instability can make it difficult for students to attend school, students experiencing homelessness (SEH) may become chronically absent. For this reason, SEH have lower graduation rates than their housed counterpants. Germany’s second-chance schools give students an opportunity to catch up on their learning so they can take final exams and earn diplomas. Kerri Tobin and Matthias Fischer studied 12 second-chance schools and found that they hold to four basic principles to counter the consequences of irregular attendance: low barriers, flexibility, a needs orientation, and positive motivation. While some of these principles may be difficult to implement in traditional U.S. and German schools, educators can adopt a more positive and compassionate attitude to encourage students to continue attending school, even when it’s difficult.

Chronic absenteeism is a symptom of a lack of student engagement. Many students feel that schools are not welcoming places and that what they learn in the classroom is not applicable in the real world. Schools like Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (the Met) in Rhode Island offer an alternative to educating high school students that taps into their need for connection to adults and the world outside the classroom. The Met is the first school founded by Big Picture Learning, which has grown into a network of public schools across the country and internationally. Its interest-based learning approach gives students opportunities to explore internships and projects based on their interests and passions. The students devote two days a week to internships during the school year.

The landscape of writing is evolving in the era of generative AI. James Paul Gee introduces the concept of “cybersapien writing literacy,” which emphasizes a synergistic partnership between humans and AI. He outlines four essential types of writing and discusses their potential benefits for personal growth, critical thinking, and societal engagement. Integrative writing combines these writing types to foster what Gee calls “expansive cognition.” This vision of writing already exists in out-of-school learning environments like affinity spaces, but schools face challenges when implementing similar practices. Shifting away from time-based assessments toward individualized, achievement-based learning models will give students opportunities to leverage AI as a tutor, co-teacher, and partner in integrative writing work.

A civic society depends on people’s ability to reason together, which requires them to seek and tell the truth. However, Sarah Stitzlein argues that schools spend too little time deliberately teaching students the value of honesty. Far from being simply a personal virtue, honesty enables citizens to think and act together for the benefit of all. The rise in populism has led some people to define truth as what feels true to their own experience and the beliefs of their in-group, often dismissing the knowledge of experts. Schools can help students learn to discern truth by engaging in inquiry in which they consider their own beliefs and those of others, as well as information from experts.

Although research has shown that having a school librarian benefits students, librarian positions are being cut in schools across the U.S. SLIDE — The School Librarian Investigation: Decline or Evolution? — examined federal data on school library staffing and interviewed 49 district leaders about their decisions to eliminate or add librarian positions. Keith Curry Lance, Debra E. Kachel, and Caitlin Gerrity report that of 54 total decisions leaders made related to changes in librarian staffing, 28 resulted in librarian increases and 26 resulted in librarian decreases. Decisions to add or eliminate positions were generally related to changes in district priorities. Although leaders expressed that they value librarians’ role in providing information literacy instruction and support and had positive experiences with librarians, some had to allocate resources to other positions. Others had trouble finding librarians with the necessary qualifications. When making staffing decisions, leaders need to consider what benefits librarians offer and how to meet student and staff needs for information and media literacy.

Teacher Shanshan Wang took the opportunity to transform an empty area near her school into a vegetable and fruit garden with her students, which they dubbed the Happy Farm. Students planted the seeds and tended the plants. They kept journals about the growing plants and worked together to solve problems when they arose. The produce from the garden is served in the school cafeteria. Wang writes that the students value being out in nature and learning through activities rather than just in their classrooms.

Civics education should include ways for students to experience civic life and to understand how voting affects their lives. Jonathan E. Collins writes that civics education is currently perceived as a luxury. It is, instead, a societal necessity that will help build and maintain our civic infrastructure.

The closure of school buildings during the pandemic made virtual instruction necessary. Since schools have reopened, its use has become more normalized than it was pre-COVID. Bob Kim discusses some of the civil rights issues education leaders and policy makers must consider if they choose to assign certain students to virtual instruction. Some students, particularly students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and English learners, may have difficulty accessing virtual instruction or receiving the full benefit of instruction when it is delivered virtually.

Research has shown that having a diverse teacher workforce benefits students, but the population of teachers remains predominantly white, even as the student population becomes increasingly diverse. Andrew Kwok and Brendan Bartanen analyzed data from college applications in Texas and found that interest in teacher certification has declined in the past decade more than interest in other professions. Promisingly, the racial makeup of college applicants interested in teaching is relatively diverse. However, at every stage in the process toward becoming a teacher, the diversity decreases. They recommend that education leaders and schools of education make intentional efforts to reach out to students of color early about the possibility of becoming a teacher.

Educator Starr Sackstein gives workplace advice to educators. In this month’s column, an experienced teacher is feeling bored and wonders if it’s time to make a career pivot.

Workplace advice, Advice for educators, Career change, Student motivation, Teacher burnout

In this month’s PDK Connection, CEO James F. Lane highlights a visit to a new Educators Rising site in Pennsylvania by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Lane also addresses AI in the classroom and promotes new lesson assessments for Education Rising Curriculum users. Elsewhere in this regular department, PDK members share the one change they’d like to see in today’s schools and recount this summer’s trip to Vietnam with the PDK International Travel Program.

PDK International, Educators Rising, AI, PDK International Travel Program.