Gov. Gavin Newsom and I don’t have a lot in frequent politically. He’s the Democratic governor of California; I work for a assume tank in Utah that helps restricted authorities. Newsom opposes faculty selection and issued a moratorium on some new constitution colleges in California. I’m a former public faculty principal who has turn into a college selection advocate, and I help alternate options like constitution colleges.
On one factor, Newsom and I agree — criminalizing chronically absent college students and their households is a nasty concept.
The attendance disaster in colleges is actual. Practically one in 4 college students nationwide is chronically absent. Absences put stress on college students, who fall behind, and on academics, who’re left to fill the gaps.
Some lawmakers imagine that fixing continual absenteeism, often known as truancy, may be achieved by courtrooms and legal codes. They are saying that if mother and father are threatened with fines or jail, college students will begin displaying up.
It sounds harsh. It’s additionally improper. Punitive truancy legal guidelines don’t tackle the actual causes children miss faculty. As an alternative, these legal guidelines flip frustration with a fancy drawback right into a blunt authorized hammer.
As a public faculty principal, I used to be all the time involved about continual absenteeism. I spent many hours with mother and father and college students making an attempt to know why faculty wasn’t working for them.
Some academics needed me to show to the courts. However authorized motion by no means mounted the issue. It was merely a method to hand off an issue colleges didn’t really feel geared up to resolve. The sentiment was comprehensible. The answer was not.
Truancy isn’t a politically partisan subject. Timmy Truett, a Republican consultant in Kentucky, and Kamala Harris, the previous Democratic vp, senator and legal professional normal from California, each pushed for stricter truancy penalties.
In Kentucky, a 2024 legislation requiring courtroom referrals for truant college students led to a surge of households pulling their youngsters out of public colleges to homeschool, fairly than face authorized penalties.
And in California, Harris’ coverage of arresting and charging mother and father with misdemeanors produced equally troubling outcomes. One California mom was arrested after her daughter, who has sickle-cell anemia, missed faculty attributable to hospitalizations.
Harris, whereas operating for president, stated she regrets criminalizing truancy in California. And Newsom in early October signed a invoice ending California’s coverage of punishing mother and father with a positive or a yr in jail for his or her youngsters’s continual truancy.
Truancy legal guidelines all share a deadly flaw: they ignore why college students are absent within the first place.
Well being struggles, bullying, financial hardship, and weak faculty connections are sometimes the actual boundaries. Threatening mother and father does nothing to resolve them. It solely deepens the divide between households and colleges.
Beneath the statistics lives an uncomfortable reality that few wish to say aloud: Public colleges don’t work effectively for each pupil.
Some face unsafe or hostile environments. Others encounter ideological conflicts or just really feel misplaced within the system. Households typically disengage as a result of their colleges aren’t assembly their wants.
There’s a higher resolution. Faculties should shift from punishment to prevention. Over the previous 15 years, many states have made large strides in direction of this aim.
Iowa constructed an information system to catch absentee patterns early. Georgia required attendance groups and college local weather committees. These efforts share one trait — they deal with absenteeism as an issue to resolve with households, not a criminal offense to prosecute in opposition to them.
Faculties that intervene early see outcomes by constructing belief and addressing sensible obstacles, reminiscent of transportation, bullying, well being and engagement points. These methods not often make headlines, however they work.
Lawmakers ought to comply with these examples. Tackle security and local weather considerations instantly. Assist colleges construct stronger relationships with households. And increase instructional choices for individuals who will not be thriving in conventional settings.
Attendance improves when households belief their colleges, not after they worry them.
Jon England is the training coverage analyst at Libertas Institute, a Utah-based free-market assume tank.
