Over the past decade, chronic absence has gone from being a virtually unknown concept to a national education metric that provides every school in the nation with critical data on how many students are missing so many days of school it jeopardizes their academic success. The inclusion of chronic absence in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was…

This state-by-state analysis of national testing data demonstrates that students who miss more school than their peers consistently score lower on standardized tests, a result that holds true at every age, in every demographic group, and in every state and city tested. The analysis is based on the results of the 2013 National Assessment of…

Fully two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders are not reading proficiently, national assessments show. The numbers are even more dire for students from low-income families: 80 percent of them have not reached proficiency. Amid the search for solutions -- whether through better instruction, improved curriculum or third-grade retention policies --…