Using Absenteeism Information to "Nudge" Attendance (Philadelphia, PA)
Solution types
School Dropout Prevention
Problems addressed
School dropout
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Children (4 to 13 years)
Teenagers (14 to 17 years)
Where the program was applied
Education establishment
Residence / home
Country of application
United States
Description

The program sends warning messages to parents of elementary school students with school attendance problems. The objective is to increase school attendance and academic achievement. The program seeks to make parents aware of the need to respect their children’s school attendance obligation, so as to involve families in the task of promoting school attendance.
Warning messages are sent together with report cards and have two modalities:
1) Generic information encouraging parents to monitor their children’s school attendance.
2) Detailed information on children’s school attendance, accompanied by an incentive message for parental involvement.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed a statistically significant decrease in absenteeism following the implementation of the program [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Rogers, T., Duncan, T., Wolford, T., Ternovski, J., Subramanyam, S., & Reitano, A. (2017). A Randomized Experiment Using Absenteeism Information to" Nudge" Attendance. REL 2017-252. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic.

Information source