Tom Swiderski

Recently I shared a new pub from me & colleagues on student absenteeism. To accompany this, we've also produced a one-pager to share key takeaways in brief!

Article: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

One-pager: epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...

@sarahcfuller.bsky.social @kevincbastian.bsky.social

We are so excited to be able to offer a limited number of subsidies to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as school district personnel, to present at NCARE 2026 thanks to our generous sponsors. Proposals are due November 7th: ncafrie.wildapricot.org/conference-i...

New Parent Research Helps Explain Causes of Post-Pandemic Absenteeism Crisis Though chronic absenteeism has declined from its post-COVID peak, too many students are still missing too much school. Research shows that absent students fall behind academically and are more likely…

NEW from me and Amie Rapaport at @futureedgu.bsky.social: New Parent Research Helps Explain Causes of Post-Pandemic Absenteeism Crisis // www.future-ed.org/new-parent-r...

CC @sarahcfuller.bsky.social @kevincbastian.bsky.social

Finally, for those following closely, we published a working paper version of this study about a year ago. That version only went through 22-23. Adding 23-24 data yielded important new insights, most especially that the weakened effect of absenteeism on achievement was only temporary!

We additionally make a case for devoting effort to understanding not only how to reduce absenteeism, but also how to reduce the negative effects of absenteeism. Students will always miss some school; making this less costly could also boost achievement.

Overall we suggest these results show that addressing absenteeism is an important, but only partial, piece of the learning recovery puzzle. This result makes sense when considered in light of the many other challenges beyond absenteeism that schools and students are also facing today.

Figure 4: Coefficient plot of first-differences estimates of effect of absenteeism on achievement. The chart depicts the point estimates and 95% confidence intervals of the estimated effect of days absent on achievement in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2022-23, and 2023-24. The chart highlights that the three pre-pandemic estimates are all about 0.0055 SDs. In 2022-23, the estimate is only 0.0032 SDs. In 2023-24, the estimate is 0.0057 SDs. The confidence intervals for 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2023-24 all overlap with each other. The confidence interval for 2022-23 does not overlap with any other estimate.

In addition, we found that the relationship between absenteeism and achievement weakened immediately post-pandemic, but only temporarily. Each absence typically lowers student achievement by ~0.0055 SDs. In 2022-23 this number was only 0.0032 SDs. But in 2023-24 it jumped back to 0.0057.

We arrived at this by 1) identifying how much more school students missed in 23-24 than their peers in 18-19 (~3 days on average); 2) estimating the effect of each day absent on student test scores in 23-24 via first-differences (-0.0057 SDs/day, + peer effects); and 3) multiplying these together.

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New paper! Using data from NC, we estimate that getting attendance rates back to pre-pandemic levels in 2023-24 could have improved state math achievement by 0.017-0.025 SDs in this year, or 13-19% of what would be needed for a full academic recovery. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Perspective | Maintaining North Carolina’s excellence in principal preparation Without a state budget, future principals in North Carolina face a limited internship opportunity — three months instead of 10.

Here’s a new perspective piece at EdNC focused on full time principal internships in NC. Good news is that the state has decided to fund them for the 2025-26 year! But the issue—questions about the importance of the internship and funding for it—will still be there. www.ednc.org/perspective-...

📢 Job Posting! 📢 We are hiring TWO postdocs at Detroit PEER at Wayne State (detroitpeer.org)! We are looking for one quant/mixed methods expert and one qual/mixed expert to work with me & @jeremylsinger.bsky.social on attendance research. Apply by Oct. 10, but flexible on start date! Please share!

How are Michigan's schools addressing chronic absenteeism?

NEW: We conducted a survey of all school leaders in Michigan in 2024-25 about their attendance strategies. Our report offers the most comprehensive evidence thus far of what schools are actively doing to reduce chronic absenteeism. @sarahlenhoff.bsky.social

detroitpeer.org/wp-content/u...

An ungated preprint copy is available on my website: tswiderski.web.unc.edu/wp-content/u...

Also, this study is based on public data (mostly IPEDS). I'm happy to share my code. Also happy to post it somewhere but I'm not sure where I should do that. OpenICPSR? Recommendations welcome!

Picture of abstract, which reads: "Twenty-nine states require or allow all 11th graders to take the ACT or SAT in school, for free, eliminating access to testing as a barrier to college entry. I examine whether this affects postsecondary outcomes using state-aggregated panel data and time-varying difference-in-differences methods. I find policy adoption led to 2% increases in selective 4-year enrollments by students from treated states. However, adoption had no effect on enrollments within adopting states' selective institutions, in part because institutions enrolled fewer students from out-of-state after adoption. I also find null but directionally negative effects on the number of graduates from state institutions. Therefore, impacts are small but positive for students from adopting states, but null or negative for adopting states' institutions."

My study on ACT/SAT test requirements has been issued at EEPA! Using time-varying DID, I found that requiring 11th graders to take the ACT or SAT had small to null effects on postsec outcomes, with some variation btw effects on students vs states' institutions. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3...

🚨Attention Job Seekers: We're hiring a quantitative researcher for a 1-year (possibly renewable for 2nd yr) position to study Career & Technical education! While not technically a postdoc, this would be a great fit for a recent PhD graduate! 🧵 careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

@sarahcfuller.bsky.social @kevincbastian.bsky.social

Student-level attendance patterns show depth, breadth, and persistence of post-pandemic absenteeism Education experts compare three years of post-pandemic attendance patterns with three years of pre-pandemic attendance patterns.

If this looks familiar, it's because we've previously posted about this on our website & at Brookings! The EEPA version updates the years analyzed ('22-24 instead of '21-23) & incorporates a host of great feedback we've picked up along the way. www.brookings.edu/articles/stu...

It's also worth noting that high-attenders are also missing more school than usual, even if they're not chronically absent. The median student has gone from missing 6-7 days of school per year to 10-11 days per year. In that sense, attendance issues are also broad (affecting many students)!

This study highlights that chronic absence (an indicator of being highly absent in a single year) may be insufficient for understanding current attendance issues. For some students, absenteeism has become especially deep (very high within a single year) and persistent (continuing across years).

Key results: 1) ~10% of students were chronically absent every year between 2022 and 2024, 4x more than a similar pre-COVID period. 2) ~5% of students accrued 100+ absences over these 3 years (30-35 per year, each year!). 3) These rates are higher at high-pov schools & for Black/Hispanic students.

New pub (open-access)! School absence rates have been above pre-pandemic levels for multiple years. We show how this is adding up for students over time, revealing that some students are experiencing especially deep and persistent levels of absenteeism. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/...

New results from "The Nation's Report Card" just dropped and they are pretty bad. I got a sneak peek as a member of IES’s Standing Committee, so I had an extra day or so to ruminate about them. A few thoughts 👇
1/n

My hope is that sharing these thoughts can spark new conversation about possible solutions to the problems schools continue to face due to COVID's impacts. Agree/disagree with what's here? Please let me know!

Perspective | Learning loss is still with us. Where do we go from here? OPTION 1: "When students are experiencing depression, anxiety, burn-out, and chronic absenteeism, they will not learn as much. When educators are burnt out and spending more time on behavioral managem...

Out today! I wrote an op-ed for EdNC reflecting on learning recovery. I suggest that the multiple other challenges schools face (attendance, mental health, teacher burn-out) undercut recovery efforts, & offer some ideas about what that means we should do moving forward. www.ednc.org/learning-los...

Strategic Research Fellow The University of North Carolina System Office is accepting applications for the position of Strategic Research Fellow. The primary goal of the posit...

Come join my data team! We are hiring another Strategic Research Fellow! (Or two)

It’s a great opportunity for an early career researcher with an interest in higher ed policy.

Priority deadline is Feb 7, more details below.

northcarolina.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Excited to release, with coauthors Camille Mikkelsen and @sarahcfuller.bsky.social, a new research brief on NC’s support personnel workforce (counselors, social workers, school psychologists) through the pandemic epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...

A few key findings:

For context, here's a few other resources on addressing chronic absenteeism that broadly emphasize tiered, supportive, & locally adapted responses:

edresearchforaction.org/research-bri...

tom-dee.github.io/files/PDK%20...

www.attendanceworks.org

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Interesting participatory research on attendance that centers student voice! "The solutions students relayed were holistic in scope and emerged directly from their expressed needs, emphasizing structural pathways, school improvement, and social-emotional support" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....