Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools“Not Present or Accounted For": Part 5
The following is a transcript of Part 5 of the radio series “Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools,” which was supported by a grant from the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.
Working to reverse a chronic dropout rate of 60 percent and roll calls that show 44 percent of high schoolers miss almost a month of school each year has shadowed public education here for years. In the fifth installment of WEAA’s documentary “Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools,” reporter Melody Simmons profiles a local researcher who has made national strides.
Robert Balfanz is a scientist whose career is devoted to keeping kids in school. His research is centered on this question for each classroom: “What can we do upfront to encourage them to come?”
This scientist at Johns Hopkins University has been working for a dozen years on a “whole school” model for attacking the drop-out and truancy crises many cities like Baltimore face. The focus is high poverty communities, where social problems often overrun academics. Funding and experienced teachers and administrators are sparse. Little has been done to reverse that cycle. He explained: “The special challenge is that essentially in the United States, we’ve concentrated our neediest students in a subset of schools. And these schools are not over resourced to meet this extra challenge. They’re often under-resourced.”
Balfanz insists schools must be welcoming places. They must be held accountable for fostering a need to succeed among students, no matter their individual learning issues. That can mean everything from curriculum to safely getting to class.
“Is the transportation really smart? Does it make sense to ask a 12-year-old to take three bus connections? Not only does it give opportunity, but it wears them down. If it’s raining out, if it’s cold out, the buses don’t always stop. It’s an actual struggle to get to school.“
Balfanz has observed attendance patterns of thousands of local middle and high schoolers. Beginning in the sixth grade, many begin to slip.
“You’ll find that over the next five years, almost two-thirds of them will miss a month or more of schooling at some point. “
In Baltimore – and dozens of other U.S. cities – Balfanz has pushed a preventative strategy. Here, it’s starting to work.
“I think Baltimore is just really turning a corner now. Before, say up till last year or so, there were very sporadic efforts. There was attempts to round up truants, have a truancy court. All things that work on a small scale, but weren’t close to the magnitude of the problem.”
Balfanz and his colleagues have developed a national movement of schools called Talent Development. There, remedial curriculum greets incoming freshmen. Classes last 80 minutes. Each absence is met with a personal response, and incentives like pizza parties are given out for perfect attendance.
“Kids like attention, and they often don’t get it so they try to get it in negative ways. So giving positive attention for good behavior can play a significant role.”
His approach is working in school districts from Kansas City to Richmond.
On the city’s Westside, Jeffrey Robinson is principal at Baltimore Talent Development High School. He has taken Balfanz’s research and put it into motion.
A walk through the immaculate hallways here is punctuated by the sound of academic lectures.
Robinson bragged about successes:
“We sent three kids to India over the summer…only 15 went in the whole country and three came from our school. We have a championship debate team, and you’re talking about black kids and debating. We sent kids to Harvard to debate, they did very well. They beat most of the private and parochial schools around here.”
Can the theories of a Hopkins research scientist help to stem Baltimore’s truancy epidemic? So far, that answer is yes.
