For more information, contact: Children’s Institute Communications Manager Katia Riddle,kriddle@childist.org, 503.219.9034

February 2, 2012– In a new analysis of school data from the Oregon Department of Education, researchers at the local economic consulting firm, EcoNorthwest, found that 23 percent of Oregon students were chronically absent in the 2009-2010 school year. Children who live outside of the most densely populated parts of the state were more likely to be chronically absent. Chronic absence is defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days — or 18 days in most Oregon districts — and is highly correlated with poor literacy skills and academic performance. Students who miss that much school during early grades are statistically more likely to have poor academic performance in later grades.

“Chronic absence is one of the most reliable and easily understood indicators of students’ risk of dropout,” said Hedy Chang, who directs Attendance Works, a national organization that commissioned the report and works to reduce chronic absence across the country. Chang went on to say that this report should serve as an urgent call to educators and policy-makers to monitor and address chronic absence.

Oregon’s report is the first statewide analysis of its kind released nationally, breaking down absenteeism by poverty levels, racial and ethnic groups, and geographic areas. Researchers also identified schools that are beating the odds, demonstrating good attendance despite a student population facing several risk factors.

In the last year and a half, administrators at the Multnomah County Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Service System have already begun working with some school districts to tackle this issue through a public service campaign, new attendance protocols and enhanced data collection. Their efforts have been especially focused on children in the earliest grades, where Oregon’s rates of chronic absence are especially high: 24 percent of Oregon kindergarteners and 18 percent of first-graders were chronically absent.

Policy-makers who focus on early childhood education agree that this data illuminates a critical issue. “Addressing the problem of chronic absence in the early years especially is key to closing the achievement gap,” said Swati Adarkar, CEO of the Children’s Institute, an organization that concentrates on moving early childhood research to policy. “Having good data gets us one step closer to identifying feasible solutions.”

Sue Hildick, President of the Chalkboard Project, added, “This report reiterates that if students are not in school, they are not learning. When Chalkboard first began talking to the public about education issues, absenteeism rose to the top of the list of concerns. Unfortunately, little progress has been made to address the issue statewide. We need to be supporting educators and parents in their strategies to tackle this serious issue.”

To see the research and data surrounding this problem, view the powerpoint presentation, Chronic Absence in Oregon.

About the Children’s Institute

The Children’s Institute is an organization dedicated to improving the odds for Oregon’s at-risk children. We are moving research to action by promoting cost-effective public and private investments in early childhood programs. http://www.childinst.org/

About the Chalkboard Project

The Chalkboard Project is an independent education reform organization dedicated to making Oregon’s K-12 public schools among the best in the country. We are funded by a consortium of Oregon’s leading philanthropic foundations who share a central belief that expert research is essential to identifying policies and practices that improve outcomes for students. In 2011, Chalkboard was awarded $24.4M in federal funding to accelerate CLASS, a revolutionary initiative that is transforming the teaching profession by creating new career pathways that lead to higher achievement in the classroom.

Launched in 2004, Chalkboard is the first initiative of Foundations for a Better Oregon (FBO). FBO partners include: Meyer Memorial Trust, The Oregon Community Foundation, The Collins Foundation, The Ford Family Foundation, JELD-WEN Foundation, and The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation. www.chalkboardproject.org.

About Attendance Works

Attendance Works is a national and state initiative that promotes awareness of the important role that school attendance plays in achieving academic success. Its goal is ensure that every district in the country not only tracks chronic absence data beginning in kindergarten or ideally earlier, but also partners with families and community agencies to intervene when attendance is a problem for children or particular schools. www.attendanceworks.org.

Open Meadow Alternative Schools Seek to Empower Educators and Students

Joining the Growing List of CLASS Participants, Teachers Will Work to Transform their Professional Experience

PORTLAND- January 30, 2012- Open Meadow Alternative Schools has received a grant from the Chalkboard Project to spend a year designing new models to better support their educators to meet the needs of students. The grant makes Open Meadow the first alternative system to participate in Chalkboard’s CLASS Project.

CLASS receives Innovation in Education Award by Oregon Business Association

October 12, 2011 – Portland, OR – A group of Oregon educators today met with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to share candid feedback of their experience with the CLASS Project and why it is transforming the teaching profession. CLASS (Creative Leadership Achieves Student Success) is an innovative education initiative led by Chalkboard Project to empower teachers and raise student achievement. Earlier this year, the federal government awarded $24.4M to seven Oregon school districts in partnership with Chalkboard to deepen their CLASS Project work.

Also today, CLASS received the inaugural Innovation in Education Award by the Oregon Business Association in front of 850 business, civic and education leaders attending the group’s annual Statesman Dinner.

“It doesn’t matter where in Oregon you live or your politics, we all want our kids surrounded by great teachers so they learn to be successful at whatever comes next,” said Chalkboard Project president Sue Hildick. “Chalkboard is helping 7,000 CLASS teachers across the state create what every professional deserves: a clear career path, effective support, expert training, and raises for great performance. The results we’re seeing in the classroom are extraordinary.”

CLASS, now in its fourth year, follows the same pioneering path that made Oregon a national leader with vote-by-mail, the bottle bill, and public beaches. It is a grassroots initiative led by teachers for teachers that includes collaboration between districts.

“Teachers have the single greatest in-school impact on a child’s education,” said US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “The CLASS Project is a tremendous example of the successful work that should be taken to scale, because students benefit when teachers work together to share best practices and learn from one another.”

“The CLASS Project is a great example of bringing educators, district leaders, and the education community together to improve student achievement,” said Oregon Business Association President Ryan Deckert.

“The CLASS project has become a source of empowerment for teachers,” said Karen Stiner, a mathematics teacher at High Desert Middle School in Bend. “It is giving us a new level of professional participation to shape our careers in ways which have the capacity to influence both teaching excellence and significantly increased levels of academic achievement for our students.”

According to Hildick, districts that have implemented CLASS for three years are making significantly greater gains in the share of students meeting and exceeding state benchmarks when compared to similar districts and the state.

“It is this type of transformation that can put Oregon’s public schools on a path to becoming among the best in the nation,” said Hildick.

About CLASS
Launched in the 2008-09 school year, CLASS is the largest initiative to come out of the Chalkboard Project, an independent non-profit dedicated to making Oregon’s K-12 public schools among the nation’s best. CLASS integrates expanded career paths, relevant professional development, meaningful performance evaluations, and new compensation models to give teachers the time and tools to stay at the leading edge of their craft. Each district’s CLASS Project design looks different because each district has different student and staff needs as determined by their teachers, administrators and school boards. There are nearly 130,000 students and 7,000 Oregon teachers in the 18 school districts participating in the CLASS Project today.