Why Students with Disabilities Are Performing Poorly
The correlation between attendance and performance in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams has been demonstrated in a study five years ago:
Fifty-six percent of 8th graders who performed at the advanced level in NAEP reading in 2011 had perfect attendance in the month before the test, compared with only 39 percent of students who performed below the basic level. In comparison, nearly one in five 8th graders at the basic level and more than one in four below basic in reading had missed three or more days in the past month.Missing class is strongly correlated with poorer performance. It should not be surprising that attendance correlates with academic achievement. This is already seen even at preschool according to a study done in Chicago:
|Above figure copied from|
Preschool Attendance in Chicago Public Schools
The effect of attendance is even more pronounced for students with greater needs (those with lower prior skills). The effects are compounding across all learning outcomes measurements in preschool. More importantly, it has been noted in this blog that these effects are long lasting. Absences in kindergarten are correlated with poor performance in fifth grade.
Finally, students with disabilities are more likely to be suspended.
Students with disabilities are already more prone to missing school if they feel bullied, harassed, or even just out of place in school. If we are suspending them more often then we are simply making their situation worse. We are not only neglecting to respond to their needs. Worse, we are really setting students with disabilities for failure.