Building on the momentum from September’s Attendance Awareness Month, five chief state school officers will lead a panel advising communities and states on the best policies and strategies for reducing chronic absence in the early grades.

The Advisory Committee on Ending Chronic Absence also will bring together local educators, health professionals and parent advocates to develop a set of common-sense proposals that can enable schools and communities to act in concert with parents to improve attendance.

The five state school chiefs who have signed on as co-chairs are:

• Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal
• California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson
• Maryland State Superintendent Lillian Lowery
• New Mexico Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera
• Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist

Established by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, the committee will address a challenge that is undermining student achievement from the early grades through high school: chronic absenteeism. Every year, as many as 7.5 million students nationwide miss 10 percent of the school year, or nearly a month of lost instructional time. These absences–excused and unexcused–exacerbate achievement gaps, leave students unable to read well by the end of third grade and contribute to high dropout rates. “Too often we overlook the absences in the early grades, because these children aren’t truant, their absences are excused,” said Ralph Smith, managing director of the GLR Campaign and senior vice president at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “But they’re missing valuable instructional time nonetheless. Too many absences can leave them struggling to read well.”

While attendance is typically the concern of local school districts, state policymakers are increasingly using chronic absence as an indicator and an accountability measure, according to The Attendance Imperative, a policy brief released this month by Attendance Works.