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Igel

(35,199 posts)
5. Averages are pointless.
Wed Sep 7, 2016, 01:40 PM
Sep 2016

Chronic absence is usually something like missing 15 days in a year. Heck, I've had kids out for surgery and illness for longer than that, or whose parents decide to take them on a two week cruise. Miss 10 days for a cruise, it's easy to be out five more days that year for illness.

Chronic absence is a string predictor of failure to graduate. But it's just correlation. High-SES kids missing class typically graduate just fine. Perhaps not with a 5.9 GPA, but high enough for college admission. These kids do well enough that they don't need to care about absences. It's the low-achievers that struggle, and disproportionately they're low SES. In some cases, it's because they're moving between schools, or aren't motivated, or have no good place to study or never learned the skills.

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