In a previous blog post examining 3rd grade English Language Arts (ELA) scores, we noted that a rise in chronic absenteeism[1] has likely obstructed post-pandemic recovery of student performance.[2] The Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) initiated a campaign to address such absenteeism in January of this year. Have we seen any improvement in chronic absenteeism rates? And, if so, have test scores followed suit?
As part of their new attendance initiative, GaDOE has launched an attendance dashboard and released attendance data by subgroup through its Georgia Insights initiative. These data cover school years 2018 through 2025. Figure 1 below uses these data to present the percent of students who were chronically absent each year, both statewide and for the fifteen school systems serving the 11-county ARC region.[3]
Figure 1: Atlanta Region vs. Georgia, Percent Chronically Absent, 2018-25
As Figure 1 above shows, chronic absenteeism rates for the state and the region are almost identical over time. Chronic absenteeism peaked in 2022 at nearly twice the pre-pandemic level and has improved each year since. But the rates remain significantly higher than their pre-pandemic levels. 19.7 percent of students in the ARC region were chronically absent in 2015, compared with just 12.2 percent in 2019. The improvement in school year 2025 was only a bit sharper than in the prior two years, but keep in mind that the interventions to improve attendance took effect at the start of the spring semester.
If attendance is improving, albeit slowly, we should hope to see corresponding improvements in test scores as well. Figure 2 that follows presents 3rd Grade ELA proficiency rates for the Atlanta region and statewide.
Figure 2: Atlanta Region vs. Georgia, 3rd Grade ELA Percent “Proficient or Higher”, 2015-25
Much as we saw in Figure 1 with absenteeism, we see in Figure 2 (above) that ELA performance in the Atlanta region and ELA scores statewide track closely together. The only difference is that percent proficient or higher is consistently a few points higher in our region than statewide. Disappointingly, we do not observe any improvement in 3rd Grade ELA proficiency.[4] In fact, the percent “proficient or higher” for 3rd grade ELA is at its lowest point in the history of the exam both for the state (34.9% proficient or higher) and for our 11-county region (38.5% proficient or higher).[5]
What accounts for this lack of improvement? There are likely at least two dynamics at work. First, it takes a long time to turn “the ship” around. Schools spend four years teaching students to read, starting in kindergarten, before we measure progress at the end of third grade. Improving attendance in one year is a good start, but it will take longer to make up the learning lost in previous years. An additional issue is that population totals can obscure what is going on with subgroups. Of particular interest is the difference between economically disadvantaged (ED) students– measured in the GaDOE dataset by eligibility for free or reduced-priced lunch– and those who are not considered economically disadvantaged (Not ED). Figure 3 below compares chronic absenteeism between these subgroups for the ARC region and the state of Georgia as a whole.[6]
Figure 3: Atlanta Region vs. Georgia, Chronic Absenteeism by Economic Status, 2018-25
This graph above (Figure 3) shows that while poorer students have always had an attendance gap vis-a-vis their wealthier peers, that gap grew significantly coming out of the pandemic. In 2019, 14.8% of ED students were chronically absent as compared to 7.4% not ED– a difference of 7.4 percentage points. By 2022, that gap had grown to 12.5 percentage points (29.6% ED vs 17.1% not ED). Furthermore, the disparities between ED and not ED students are even higher in the Atlanta region: the gap between the two groups was 14.9 percentage points in 2022. And while the gap between ED and not ED students did narrow slightly in school year 2025 both in the Atlanta region and statewide (perhaps thanks to the GaDOE intervention), the attendance gap remains much higher than in the pre-pandemic years. In other words, the students who incur the greatest harm from missing school are also the ones most likely to be chronically absent.
Notes:
[1] A student who misses more than 10% of days enrolled is considered chronically absent. This translates to 18 days missed for a student enrolled for the entire 180-day school year.
[2] After all, you can’t teach kids if they’re not at school.
[3] This includes the 11 county school systems, plus city systems for Atlanta, Buford, Decatur, and Marietta.
[4] It is worth noting that many other test scores went up last year, especially in mathematics. We focus on 3rd grade ELA as a key benchmark, as we have in past years. It indicates the degree to which students have successfully transitioned from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”– a crucial transition before moving on content-based courses in fourth grade and beyond.
[5] The Georgia Milestones date back to school year 2015, when they replaced the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (aka CRCTs) utilized in years prior.
[6] A cautionary note about this measure is in order. Economic disadvantage is measured as whether or not a student is eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. A weakness with this measure is that qualified schools and systems that elect to implement the “Community Eligibility Provision” appear in the data as having 100% economically disadvantaged students. In other words, the ED student group includes some students who are not, in fact, economically disadvantaged. As a result, the differences we observe in the data– sizable though they are– understate the attendance disparities between the two groups. For an excellent discussion about the Community Eligibility Provision, implications for the use of students receiving free or reduced-price school lunches as a measure of economic disadvantage, and a proposed alternative measure, see this brief from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement: https://gosa.georgia.gov/changes-freereduced-priced-lunch-measure-student-poverty.