Photo by heicktopiertz.com on Flickr.

Truancy is a massive obstacle to many DC kids getting a good education. Punitive threats to parents and children might be able to suppress some symptoms of truancy, but to reduce the core desire of the child to miss school we must dig deeper, and understand its cause.

There are three chief categories of inputs in a child’s life: their own circumstances and self-image, their relationship with their parents, and the characteristics of their school. A fourth, the surrounding community, impacts the relationship the child has with all three. Each contributes to the chance a given child will stay absent from school.

When surveys are done of the various stakeholders on the primary causes of truancy, the schools and their staff tend to blame the parents. The children generally blame the school. The parents often blame the child. Whatever insight we can gain from that set of relationships, it seems clear all play a part.

The student

The usual suspects all predict a truant child: drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, teen pregnancy. These are not the only factors at work; while significant when present, they are not common enough, early enough, to be a factor in the majority of cases (instead they are more often a downstream symptom).

Instead, educational attainment—especially illiteracy even as early third grade—and a past history of truancy are the strongest two predictors that are somewhat internal to the child.

Another area, where both students and schools have some control, is whether they have friends who are already delinquent in some way. As we might expect, the behavior of one’s peers strongly predicts of one’s own behavior. Similarly, if a child is socially rejected, the likelihood of being truant skyrockets.

Parents

Unsurprisingly, child abuse, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and general poverty in the family all make truancy more likely. Students under other pressures are less able to focus on school, are given less support and assistance at home, and are more likely to feel alienated from their teachers and fellow pupils on account of these problems.

Low levels of education on the part of the child’s mother, specifically, is a strong predictor of truancy on the part of the child.

According to a 2008 study in the journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, truants have a much higher feeling of non-acceptance or rejection from parents than the control group. While the study doesn’t explore the causes of these feelings, it does show that this is a consistent disparity, despite examining two different age groups.

Schools

Sanctions for truancy that keep a child out of class or school, such as detention and suspension, are counterproductive. Not only do they increase the total amount of class time the student misses (obviously), but they increase the probability of future truancy.

Safety is a major factor in school absence. “School refusers” feel unsafe either traveling to school or on school grounds itself, concerned for physical emotional harm. This fear might be justified, or might just stem from the child’s emotional issues. But unsafe schools that are in high-crime areas, or that have a significant problem with bullying, encounter much higher rates of school refusers than other schools without these problems.

School refusal is distinct from truancy in the sense that the children involved manifest different psychosocial characteristics. However, data collected on “truancy” incorporates both populations. Despite these upstream differences, school refusal creates many of the same downstream costs as standard truancy to both the child, and the society at large.

Students who live in economically depressed communities often don’t fully grasp why school is relevant. With the adults they see in their neighborhoods largely working in low-skill or informal jobs that have no educational requirements, the general argument that schooling is vital to one’s future seems less credible. The possibility of careers that are more rewarding and have higher requirements seems rather distant when they know few adults socially with those professions — especially ones with they can identify with and that resemble them culturally and socioeconomically.

Interestingly, while many people generally assume that “improving schools” is a solution to this problem, a recent study found the components of such improvement are a mixed blessing.

  • High achievement standards are associated with lower truancy,
  • low student workload with higher rates of truancy, but
  • high instructional pace was also associated with higher truancy.

This suggests that simply accelerating demands on children is not necessarily a wise course.

There is no easy answer

In a later piece we will examine the best practices we find around the country to address truancy, but it seems clear that there is no easy answer to this question.

These predictors are all related; it’s not clear which are causes and which are effects. At the same time none of these problems, solved in isolation, will be enough.

Most of these problems are, at least to some degree, unsolvable. Poverty will exist so long as our society is structured the way it is, and it will provoke ancillary challenges that additionally imperil the child’s attendance. Some parents will prove to be poor guardians of their children, especially if they are themselves under pressure socially and/or economically.

Nevertheless, a multi-pronged anti-truancy policy will clearly want to aim significant efforts at all these contributing factors, if it should wish to significantly diminish that community’s truancy rate.

Rahul Sinha is a member of Greater Greater Washington’s Elections Committee, and has been a contributor since 2013. He was born in the District and has lived in Kalorama Triangle since 2009. During the day Rahul works as an economist and data scientist for international development. He served a term on a DCPS advisory board, and currently serves as a trustee on the board of a DC charter school.