Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

There are about 350,000 migrant students in the US, and about 40,000 migrant students in Texas. The U.S. Department of Education defines a migrant child as someone under 22 years of age, who is a migrant agricultural worker or fisher or who has a parent, spouse, or guardian who is a migratory agricultural worker, and who has moved across school district boundaries within the previous 36 months in order to obtain temporary or seasonal employment in agricultural or fishing work. These students are among the most educationally disadvantaged population, facing extreme poverty, limited access to quality health care, have low English proficiency, and frequent migration.

Furthermore, many students work alongside their families as they struggle to make ends-meet. While the Migrant Education Program (MEP) was created to help ensure migrant student success and graduation from high school, about 50% of migrant students drop out of school. One indicator of school dropout is chronic absenteeism, which has been associated with drop-out, and has never been measured for the migrant population. A student who is chronically absent has missed 10% or more of the school year for any reason, excused or unexcused. Students who are chronically absent miss valuable instructional and learning time, which impacts their academic achievement, engagement in school, and social development. Chronic absenteeism can have both short-term and long-term effects on students’ social, emotional, academic, and physical well-being. While the literature has grown our understanding of chronic absenteeism, including its causes and affects, further research is needed on the impact and rate(s) of chronic absenteeism for particular student groups and populations.

Using student level data from the Public Education Information Management System at the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board from 2002-2015, we measure total and chronic absenteeism for migrant students, a matched sample of non-migrant students, and the general student population. Using a panel data structure, we compare longitudinal migrant student outcomes as well as the general population and a matched population using logistic regression, poisson regression, and PSM matching. We found that migrant students have a 47% higher odds of being chronically absent compared to the general student population, but are 9% more likely to be absent compared to a matched sample. When we consider total days absent, migrant students have a 16% higher incidence rate of absenteeism than non-migrant students, but they miss only 1/5^th more of a day than a matched sample. This study is one of the first using longitudinal data set(s) to measure chronic absenteeism between all migrant and non-migrant students in Texas. Our findings suggest that additional resources and expertise into MEP would be beneficial to mitigate the effects of chronic absenteeism on migrant populations. Also, we discuss the need for further research on migrant populations as it relates to school attendance and dropout prevention strategies.