School Attendance: A Win-Win Policy
Saturday, February 4, 2006
U.S. Freedom Foundation www.freedomfoundation.us   
David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow           

Recently a North Carolina high school introduced a program to encourage students to attend more regularly.  Students with a perfect attendance for the school year will be eligible to win a new car or truck at the end of the year.  So far this year, the school has the second highest attendance rate in its more than 30-year history.          

The object, of course, is not attendance for its own sake but that students will learn more in proportion to  how often they attend classes.  

Other things being equal, and assuming the school is an effective one - which,  unfortunately is not always the case, this expectation is reasonable.          

In the discussions during a radio call-in talk-show not everyone agreed with the policy, even if it seems to be working.   Others thought it was a good idea, so why not?  Some, especially a few older callers, disagreed with it and said it amounted to nothing but a bribe to get students to do what they should be doing anyway.          

Maybe so, but how many adults work for someone for nothing because working is something they need to do anyway.  Do they consider their paycheck to be nothing but a bribe, or is it regarded as pay for performance?          

Clearly it's the latter.  And, in the case of the students, for all but the one who ultimately is awarded a car or a truck, it will prove to be neither a bribe nor pay for performance.  Even they will benefit if better attendance results in higher achievement.          

But there's more to the policy than seems to have received public mention, even by district officials, and at least one, or two, ways where the district itself will literally profit from the program.          

Throughout the nation it is common for state financial aid to school districts to be based at least partially on attendance, or what is termed Average Daily Membership.  Thus at least a significant part of state aid translates into so many dollars per pupil in actual attendance.          

While the amount of those dollars varies from state to state, let's assume it amounts to $3,000 per pupil. In that case, if the North Carolina school can raise its daily attendance by 10 pupils it will receive an additional $30,000 annually from the state.  That is probably enough to pay for the vehicle being awarded.  And an increase of 10 pupils daily is a modest one.  In reality it might well be more than that, although exact figures were not given.          

With a little promotion the school might realize a 100% profit from any increase in state subsidies.  If they announce the program at the beginning of the year, and promote it throughout the year with regular reference to the car dealer from whom a vehicle will be obtained one of two things may well happen.          

At the very least, the dealer may provide the selected vehicle to the district at a very sharp discount.  At the most, they may provide it for free in return for the regular mention of their participation in the program.  To avoid any taint of favoritism, the district might open the selection of a vehicle to competitive bidding from the area's auto dealers and award the choice to the one making the best offer.          

There will undoubtedly be those who not only think awarding a vehicle to a student is a form of bribery but will object to what they consider too commercial a plan, or one that relies on the profit motive. Some of them might well be the same ones who complain about their school taxes.          

In any event, it will be interesting to see how the North Carolina program works out, whether it gets sufficient attention from education publications, especially those of associations representing school boards, and whether it gets adopted by any other school districts.  Even independent and charter schools might consider trying such an idea.          

Disseminating news of the program to public schools may be difficult.  Perhaps no institution is so rigid, and so resistant to new ideas, or even to know what exists beyond their immediate vision, as public education.
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"After a lot of years of trying to improve schools, we don't have one district of any size or diversity of population where good schools are the norm not the exception." John L. Anderson, President, New American Schools Development Corporation, cited, p. 29, Education Week, Nov. 2, 1994