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When Texas students don’t show up for class, it hurts learning — and funding

When Texas students don’t show up for class, it hurts learning — and funding

Educators in Texas want kids to show up to class so they can learn — but also because schools face funding cuts when students aren’t there.

The state is one of the few states that funds schools based on “average daily attendance” rather than total enrollment.

That distinction created problems for school districts as the pandemic led to high rates of chronic absenteeism.

“If 20 students show up — or 22 students — it’s still the same cost,” said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. “You have the teacher’s salary, your buses are running, your cafeteria is running.”

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Many Texas children are chronically absent from school. Here’s why

According to a recent statewide analysis, one in five Texas students was chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. The numbers are improving, but are still not back to pre-pandemic levels.

“It’s a behavioral change related to COVID that we’re not seeing a recovery in behavior yet,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath recently told lawmakers at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

In 2019, the average daily attendance rate statewide was approximately 92%. That meant schools were funded by the attendance of about 5 million students – even though more than 5.4 million were enrolled.

The attendance rate fell to around 89% by 2022.

It rebounded to about 91% — still about 1 percentage point lower than before the pandemic.

While this may not seem like a big deal, every one percentage point change in attendance represents a $380 million decrease in state funding.

Texas schools are essentially funded with 5 million students. More than 5.5 million children now attend the state’s public schools.

Lawmakers have debated moving to an enrollment-based funding system in the past, but the idea failed to gain political traction.

Why a Texas lawmaker wants to fund schools based on enrollment instead of attendance

“I don’t support an enrollment-based system because it takes away all incentive to get kids to show up,” Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said at the October finance hearing.

Many public school leaders don’t buy this argument. Brown said they are working hard to make sure students come to class. For example, some administrators go door-to-door at the beginning of the year to find students who have not yet shown up on campus.

“Ultimately it is the parents’ responsibility to get their child to school,” he said. “It’s not fair for students who are in school to not receive funding because their classmates don’t show up.”

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The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of Education Lab journalism.