Giving Compass' Take:

• As states adopt ESSA standards that include chronic absenteeism, some educators worry that these standards will encourage expulsions which are disproportionately distributed to black students. 

• How can states write their policies to reduce both absenteeism and expulsions? How can philanthropy help reverse the disturbing trend of racially biased school discipline? 

• Learn how restorative justice can work to keep students of color in school. 

In the end, an absence is an absence, whether it’s because a student is sick, uninterested in school, or suspended, district leaders and advocates said at a forum at the Brookings Institution on expanded accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

“We can’t address chronic absenteeism if we’re having, as the numbers now indicate, a greater disparity growing in terms of young people of color being suspended or expelled,” said Broderick Johnson, chair of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance at the Obama Foundation.

Numbers from the just-released Civil Rights Data Collection showed that black students are more likely to be arrested at school than their peers, a gap that seems to be widening; racial disparities in other discipline measures persisted from previous years even as districts across the country reduce suspensions and expulsions.

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia are including measures of chronic absenteeism — often defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days a year — in new school ratings under ESSA.

Sandra Diodonet, assistant superintendent in Paterson, New Jersey, who oversaw that district’s work on chronic absenteeism, said the focus on attendance has led some principals to reconsider harsh disciplinary consequences, given the impact of suspending a student on their schools’ absenteeism figures.

Read the full article about harsh discipline and chronic absenteeism by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74.