AUTHOR=LeBoeuf Lee , Goldstein-Greenwood Jacob , Lillard Angeline S. 

TITLE=Rates of chronic absenteeism in Montessori and non-Montessori Title 1 schools

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Education

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1059071

DOI=10.3389/feduc.2023.1059071

ISSN=2504-284X

ABSTRACT=In this study, we asked whether Montessori schools, which tend to have high student engagement, are associated with lower average rates of chronic absenteeism and/or smaller racial disparities therein relative to non-Montessori schools. We use multilevel modeling to answer this question, following an approach proposed in Author et al., (in press) for analyzing racial disparities in count outcomes. We identified a sample of Title 1 Montessori and non-Montessori schools using propensity score matching and data from the Civil Rights Data Collection. We did not observe significant differences in average overall rates of chronic absenteeism across school types, nor in average racial disparities in the rates of chronic absenteeism between Black and White or Hispanic and White students, though Montessori schools had slightly lower average rates for White students. We discuss shortcomings in the way chronic absenteeism data is collected, and how these shortcomings do not allow researchers to answer questions about why students are chronically absent, thereby limiting intervention work.