California schools face twin perils: chronic absenteeism and declining enrollment

California’s public schools have a numbers problem —and it’s not just that their students don’t score very highly in national tests of mathematics ability.

Their other numbers problem is the financial squeeze posed by declining enrollment, especially in large urban districts, compounded by apparently growing levels of chronic absenteeism, or truancy.

“Thirty percent of California public school students were chronically absent from school in 2021-22 — a near tripling of the percentage in 2018-19,” the Public Policy Institute of California declared in a recent report. “Although we do not know if this stark increase in chronic absenteeism, defined as missing at least 10% of the school year or at least 18 days, will continue, the data from last year raises concerns about the pace of students’ learning recovery after the educational setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

California is one of just seven states that base state financial support of local school systems on attendance, rather than enrollment, so the declines in enrollment and attendance comprise a double financial whammy, one of the reasons many school districts are facing budget deficits.

Enrollment is an immutable effect of demographic change, both the out-migration of young families to other states and lower birth rates. Chronic truancy, on the other hand, first became notable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were closed for months and many students were unable to keep up with studies via the internet.

Another report from the Public Policy Institute of California found that “schools with greater increases in chronic absenteeism saw steeper drops in proficiency rates on the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) English and math tests, when comparing pre-pandemic levels (2018-19) to 2021-22.”

During the pandemic, the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom temporarily deviated from basing state aid on attendance, given the massive dislocation of school closures. The situation also reinvigorated an old debate over whether using attendance is outmoded and California should shift to an enrollment-based system.

Policy Analysis for California Education, a think tank maintained by the state’s major universities, chimed in with its own take on the issue, to wit: “We find that about 90 percent of districts would receive more funding under an enrollment-based formula than they would under the current ADA-based system, with the biggest boost going to high school districts and districts with more low-income, English learner, and foster youth students.”

ADA refers to average daily attendance.

The analysis estimated that switching to enrollment would cost about $3.4 billion a year, since truant students would still qualify their schools for aid. It cautioned, however, that while “switching from attendance to enrollment may help districts gain greater fiscal stability and may shift more resources to school districts with greater student needs,” on the other hand, “the current system includes a fiscal incentive that, most agree, encourages higher attendance, even if that attendance definition is relatively weak.”

In other words, switching to enrollment would take schools off the hook in battling truancy.

Last year, Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator from Glendale, introduced legislation, backed by the public education establishment, including state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond, to make the change.

“Enrollment-based funding ensures that California schools are funded more equitably and have greater financial stability and predictability,” Portantino said.

However, with the state facing chronic budget deficits of its own and barely able to supply schools with their constitutionally mandated levels of money, Senate Bill 98 faltered. It eventually morphed into merely an instruction to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the Legislature’s budget advisor, to study the effects of changing to an enrollment-based system and report on it by Jan. 1, 2026.

That’s known in political circles as kicking the can down the road, a time-dishonored way for officials to avoid making decisions.