Community-Involved Efforts Lead to Record CPS Attendance Levels
Chicago Public Schools enjoyed a 94.7% attendance rate on the district’s first day of school. The turnout this Tuesday marks a four-year high, and a jump from 92.9% last year. CPS attributes the turnout largely to coordinated efforts among the schools, community organizations, and families.
One of the main causes of poor first-day attendance is simply lack of awareness. To counter this problem, CPS leveraged the power of traditional and web-based social networking as part of what it called an “aggressive campaign” to increase attendance. The Chicago Tribune reports:
“Officials credited their grassroots campaign, which included phone banks, robo-calls to students’ homes from celebrities Google and Facebook ads. The mayor had also asked other city agencies to pitch in and remind residents on back-to-school dates.
This year, CTA offered students and their parents free rides to and from school on Tuesday. And CPS officials signed up with the online coupon site Groupon to encourage residents to donate back-to-school kits for students in the most truant-prone neighborhoods. More than $15,000 was raised for more than 1,200 kits.”
It’s encouraging to see CPS utilizing highly effective but low-cost means of improving education. Chicago Appleseed has written proposed amendments (pdf) to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (“No Child Left Behind”), which would stimulate these kinds of initiatives.