Education Week - April 6, 2022 - 5

funded schools and good teaching.
(Some K-12 researchers and media
organizations, including Education
Week, now generally prefer to
call them " opportunity " rather than
achievement gaps.)
And analyses of how students
perform often counter stereotypes.
Carr pointed out, for example, significant
progress in the proportion
of Black high school students who
took calculus, according to the
NCES' most recent report on high
school transcripts; such a picture is
one of resiliency and improvement,
she noted.
Equity is important, if somewhat
politically touchy, territory for the
organizations. The term " equity "
has become a lightning rod in discussions
about race and schooling,
and even NAEP has been no exception.
NAGB faced some internecine
drama last year over equity when it
was finalizing a new reading framework,
though most of it ultimately
centered on disagreements about
how best to assess lo wer-performing
students fairly. Muldoon of NAGB
said the organization is also commissioning
studies about how new test
frameworks, like its upcoming science
revision, can continue to embrace
equity and give all students a
shot to show what they know-while
maintaining technical quality.
NAEP will also continue to work
to get a better indicator for students'
socioeconomic status. The usual
measure, eligibility for free and
reduced-price lunch, is increasingly
problematic because of policy shifts
that permit more students to receive
those services regardless of income
level.
5.
NAEP's architecture will
continue to support new
research.
During the pandemic, the Biden
administration issued an executive
order requiring the Education Department
to track the pandemic's
impact on schools, which led to a
series of surveys last spring showing
the proportion of schools using
different modes of learning. To pull
this off, NCES used the NAEP architecture
to get the surveys out quickly.
After all, NAEP testing relies on a
nationally representative sample of
schools-and that happens to be just
what researchers need for surveys.
In fall 2021, NCES extended that
approach for its new " pulse " surveys,
designed to give additional quickturnaround
survey research. And the
agency has set itself an ambitious
agenda this year on topics like mental
health, school staffing challenges,
and parent concerns, while also slimming
down how long the surveys
take to fill out and number-crunch.
(NCES' other major collections, on
principals, teachers, school finance,
and scores of other indicators typically
take a few years to complete.)
" It was an example of how nimble
and flexible NAEP can be, " Carr said.
" We need to take advantage of this
infrastructure to help us quickly go in,
ask a few questions of schools-thousands
of schools-and gather the information
that's needed. "
Are Vulnerable Students Slipping
Through Cracks?
WHAT THE
RESEARCH SAYS
Are Vulnerable Students Slipping
Through Cracks?
K-12 teachers in schools that serve a majority of students of color,
high-poverty, and urban students were more likely to see
students enroll in school in 2020-21 but never attend, according
to a new Government Accountability Office report.
More Than a Million Students 'Never Showed Up' Last School Year.
Here's What We Know About Them
Perce tage of Teachers Reporting Students
'Unaccounted For'
By Sarah D. Sparks
An estimated 1.1 million K-12 students registered for the 202021
school year but never showed up for class, according to a
Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday.
Based on a nationally representative Gallup survey, nearly half of
public school teachers said they had at least one student who enrolled
but remained " unaccounted for, " the GAO report found. Three out of
4 of those teachers said they had more students unaccounted for by
the end of the 2020-21 school year than in previous years.
Rules vary widely from state to state on how schools identify
students who leave school-particularly the rising number who have
been home-schooled since the pandemic-but the GAO findings
align with other data suggesting school enrollment itself dropped by
more than a million students nationwide last year.
" It's pretty sobering, " said Hedy Chang, the founder and executive
director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that works to combat
chronic absenteeism. Missing students could lead to higher dropout
rates and lower district budgets in years to come.
While teachers across all kinds and grades of schools reported
missing students, some of the most-vulnerable students and underresourced
schools seemed hardest hit.
Disadvantaged students were more likely to get lost
in the shuffle
The GAO found that 50 percent to 60 percent of teachers in highpoverty
schools reported having students unaccounted for, compared
to less than a third of teachers in schools where 20 percent or fewer
students were from low-income families. Teachers in schools serving
a majority of students of color were also 11 percentage points more
likely to have students who never showed up, 56 percent versus 45
percent of teachers in majority-white schools.
Advocates have voiced concern for months that homeless and
highly mobile students became difficult to find and support as
schools went in and out of quarantine and families faced greater
financial instability. For example, while child homelessness reached
a high of 1.5 million just before the pandemic, by fall 2020, more than
400,000 of them couldn't be found.
Home support for learning proved a challenge
Even though teachers in the earliest grades were the least likely to
have students unaccounted for, more than 80 percent of K-2 teachers
reported more students missing last year than in prior years. That
share is 10 percentage points or more higher than for teachers of
older students.
While in-person and virtual teachers were equally likely (71 percent
for each group) to say they had more students unaccounted for
in 2020-21, teachers reported a lack of home support for learning
was the most common barrier to student attendance. Nearly 3 in 4
teachers said their students had little or no help from adults when
attending remote classes, and-even during a period of major district
investment in education technology-17 percent of teachers said their
students have no reliable internet service or access to laptops and
other devices to use it.
Caregiving and work competed for older students' time
The pandemic took the greatest toll on high school students, teachers
said. Sixty-five percent of high school teachers reported missing
students, more than double the share of K-2 teachers. Fifty-seven
percent of high school teachers said their students had more work
responsibilities that interfered with school, even as schools themselves
had less capacity to provide work-study opportunities for students.
0-20% Poverty
21-40% Poverty
41-60% Poverty
61-80% Poverty
81-100% Poverty
Are Vulnerable Students Slipping
Through Cracks?
0-20% Poverty
21-40% Poverty
41-60% Poverty
61-80% Poverty
81-100% Poverty
49%
50%
49%
50%
53%
53%
K-12 teachers in schools that serve a majority of students of color,
high-poverty, and urban students were more likely to see
students enroll in school in 2020-21 but never attend, according
to a new Government Accountability Office report.
60%
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
Perce tage of Teachers Reporting Students
'Unaccounted For'
'Unaccounted For'
Majority White
Majority White
0-20% Poverty
21-40% Poverty
41-60% Poverty
61-80% Poverty
81-100% Poverty
32%
Majority Students of Color
Majority Students of Color
45%
49%
50%
53%
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
Perce tage of Teachers Reporting Students
'Unaccounted For'
'Unaccounted For'
Urban
Urban
Rural
Rural
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
65%
'Unaccounted For'
Majority White
Suburban
Suburban
Majority Students of Color
65%
45%
44%
45%
44%
45%
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
60%
56%
56%
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
'Unaccounted For'
45%
60%
'Unaccounted For'
32%
32%
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
K-12 teachers in schools that serve a majority of students of color,
high-poverty, and urban students were more likely to see
students enroll in school in 2020-21 but never attend, according
to a new Government Accountability Office report.
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
56%
SOURCE: U.S. Government Accountability Office
SOURCE: U.S. Government Accountability Office
elementary students were more likely to need to take care of family
members-be they younger siblings or sick grandparents-in ways
that made it harder to come to school. Nearly half of teachers in
'Unaccounted For'
Urban
Rural
65%
grades 3-12 said that family care duties were a " somewhat " or
" significant " factor in students not coming to school.
" Unfortunately, I think things may even be more challenging this
year, which is a horrible thing to have to say, " Chang said. While
nearly all schools returned to in-person instruction in the 2021-22
school year, she noted that waves of increasingly infectious pandemic
variants led to ongoing school closures and student quarantines,
which hurt teachers' ability to get students back into academic
routines.
" It really hurt students' sense of whether schools were safe and
Suburban
45%
44%
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
SOURCE: U.S. Government Accountability Office
healthy places to return, " she said.
Moreover, " to get kids to re-enroll and return to school, you have to
do a lot of individual outreach to find those kids, to talk to those kids,
to bring them back, " she said. " But schools right now just don't have
the bandwidth to do that deeper outreach. "
The Gallup survey, conducted in June and July 2021, included more
than 2,860 public school K-12 teachers in general education and core
subjects like English/language arts, math, science, social studies, and
world languages. Pollsters asked teachers to distinguish between the
students who " disengaged, " or missed significant portions of school
during the year, and those who registered but never attended and had
no record of transferring or being home-schooled instead. The GAO
plans a separate report in coming months focused on disengaged
students.
From remote learning for young children to playground infection risks, schooling under the pandemic is raising a lot of questions for teachers and education
leaders. This research column aims to help readers understand what the research says-and doesn't say-about our new context for learning. If you have a
question, please send it to ssparks@educationweek.org.
% Teachers With Students 'Unaccounted For'
Percentage of Teachers Reporting Students
The GAO also found that secondary and even some older
EDUCATION WEEK | April 6, 2022 | www.edweek.org | 5

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - April 6, 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - April 6, 2022