Can Court Diversion Improve School Attendance among Elementary Students? Evidence from Five School Districts

Autor/inn/en	Lee, Won Fy; McNeely, Clea A.; Rosenbaum, Janet E.; Alemu, Besufekad; Renner, Lynette M.
Titel	Can Court Diversion Improve School Attendance among Elementary Students? Evidence from Five School Districts
Quelle	In: Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 13 (2020) 4, S.625-651 (27 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Lee, Won Fy)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1934-5747
DOI	10.1080/19345747.2020.1760976
Schlagwörter	Truancy; Courts; Juvenile Justice; Child Safety; Child Welfare; Social Services; Referral; Attendance; Public Health; Law Enforcement; Program Evaluation; Elementary School Students; Student Records; Parent Education; Public Agencies; Program Effectiveness; School Districts; Minnesota + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Schulabsentismus; Schulschwänzen; Schulverweigerung; Court; Gerichtshof; Jugendgerichtshilfe; Kindeswohl; Social service; Soziale Dienstleistung; Soziale Dienste; Anwesenheit; Gesundheitswesen; Gesetzesvollzug; Programme evaluation; Programmevaluation; Schülerakte; Parents education; Elternbildung; Elternschule; Öffentliche Einrichtung; School district; Schulbezirk
Abstract	We examined the effect on attendance of a truancy court-diversion program for elementary students. Truancy court-diversion programs represent a shift from a law-and-order approach toward a public health model to address school absenteeism. Instead of directly referring parents of truant elementary students to child protection services or juvenile court, most court-diversion programs educate parents about the importance of school attendance and create an attendance contract that includes social service referrals. Despite being widely implemented, truancy court-diversion models have not been rigorously evaluated. Using 10 years of administrative data from multiple state and local agencies from Minnesota, we constructed a counterfactual of students from schools that did not implement truancy court-diversion. We used difference-in-differences methods to test whether parent education and attendance contracts improved attendance relative to direct referral to child protection services or court. We failed to reject the null hypothesis of no program effect. Most truancy program evaluations use a pre- and post-mean comparison, but our analysis suggested that the magnitude of the bias in such studies is substantial because absenteeism showed a pattern of regression to the mean. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01