Attendance matters. And a new analysis of data comparing attendance at public schools in Pittsburgh and others across Pennsylvania by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy once again confirms the axiom that attendance is closely related to academic performance.

“That’s not to say that high absenteeism is the only cause of poor education,” said Jake Haulk, president emeritus of the Pittsburgh think tank.

“But it’s safe to say that if students are not in school for a large part of the school year, they will have a hard time keeping up with class work or doing well on tests,” he says.

Six and seven years ago, respectively, the institute reported the strong correlation between school attendance and pass test scores in Pennsylvania, with particular attention to Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS).

The results of very low scores and high rates of absenteeism in many schools were not surprising; years of university studies have produced the same results.

“What’s troubling is that many PPS schools have shown little or no improvement in absenteeism rates since 2014,” Haulk found.

An updated analysis of high schools and colleges in Pennsylvania, based on 2019 data (the latest available) has only reaffirmed the link between attendance and academic performance.

“(T) he conclusion is obvious,” he said, “High academic performance in Pennsylvania high schools is strongly correlated with good attendance. And conversely, high absenteeism is associated with very poor academic performance.

And just as clearly, “ranking at or near the top of all colleges academically is associated with very low levels of absenteeism,” says Haulk.

There is also a not unexpected nuance in the data.

“It should be noted that lower performing colleges on average have significantly better attendance than lower-ranking high schools,” said Haulk. This is because older students tend to have more truancy issues than pre-teen students.

It’s fair to say that many of the same conclusions drawn from this similar analysis five years ago still hold true today.

Namely, that “very high truancy rates in failing high schools undoubtedly reflects a lack of concern about the need for a good education from a large percentage of students”.

In addition, high absenteeism disrupts class work.

“It’s almost certainly correlated with discipline problems in the classroom,” the older study concluded. “Students who miss a large number of days will not complete their homework; they will fail exams and be ill-prepared for passing tests in Pennsylvania, as the scores so easily indicate.

Then there is “the plight of students who would like to learn but who are embarrassed by the attitude and behavior in class of those who show that they don’t care about school and probably don’t care so much about school. others are prevented from learning due to a lack of decorum and discipline in the classrooms, ”recalled the 2015 analysis.

And then as now (and as always) one has to wonder how such high absenteeism rates can be tolerated by the state, insofar as it provides a large part of the funding of schools.

“When will lawmakers and the governor demand that the problem of high absenteeism be taken seriously?” Haulk asks in his final review. “How can you justify spending $ 15,000 or $ 20,000 per year per student when, in many schools, half or more are chronically absent? “