Evaluating school accountability: Chronic absenteeism as an antecedent indicator in every student succeeds act accountability systems

This study examined the role of chronic absenteeism within a state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability system, focusing on its empirical and structural relationships with other accountability indicators and its influence on school rankings. Using statewide data from four academic years (2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023), the study employed principal components analysis (PCA) and path analysis to address three research questions: (1) What are the observed relationships among the State’s accountability indicators, as identified through principal component analysis, and how do these relationships inform interpretations of overall school quality? (2) How does changing the State education indicator composition (i.e., removing chronic absenteeism) affect overall and relative school rankings? and (3) How do the direct and indirect effects among the observed accountability indicators involving chronic absenteeism help explain overall school quality? Results from the PCA revealed a unidimensional component structure across years, with academic achievement, academic growth, and chronic absenteeism emerging as core contributors to school quality composites. Path analyses indicated that chronic absenteeism functioned as both a direct and indirect predictor of overall accountability outcomes. While its exclusion had minimal impact on statewide ratings, localized effects on relative rankings were evident, particularly among schools near accountability classification thresholds. Over the years, chronic absenteeism’s predictive influence strengthened in the post-COVID period, underscoring its increasing importance in explaining school-level performance variation. Findings suggest that chronic absenteeism operates as an antecedent rather than a reflection of school quality outcomes. These results contribute to ongoing policy discussions about the design and weighting of accountability systems by highlighting the need to balance outcome-based measures with leading indicators that capture conditions for learning.