Absenteeism

Source: AEI

Date: 6/23/26

Please Excuse My Child: Unexcused Absences in Student Attendance and Achievement

Key Points

Examining excused and unexcused absences separately can reveal important differences in students' attendance behavior that are obscured by metrics like chronic absenteeism and absence rates, which treat all absences the same.

Using Indiana data, we find that unexcused absences follow distinct patterns from excused absences: Unexcused absences rise over the spring, while excused absences do not and rise more before and after weekends.

Even adjusting for other factors such as poverty and race, students with the top 20 percent highest absence rates are responsible for a disproportionate share of unexcused absences, meaning that chronic absenteeism is, to a large extent, unexcused absenteeism.

 

Unexcused absences reduce student test scores more than excused absences, suggesting that unexcused absences may be the prime target for efforts to improve attendance.

Enrollment

Source: Bellwether

Date: 6/25/26

Declining Enrollment in America's Public Schools

After decades of steady growth, the country's K-12 public school enrollment is in sustained decline. Federal projections indicate that 40 states will experience further losses through 2030-31, driven primarily by falling birth rates, with other contributing factors including slowing immigration and the expansion of private school options and homeschooling.

 

This decline could cause the nation's public education system to lose $11.5 billion in state revenues annually by 2030-31, prompting widespread staff layoffs, program reductions, and school consolidations and closures. As overall enrollment shrinks, the share of students requiring supplemental support, including English Learners, students with disabilities, and students from low-income families, is growing. Districts face the compounding challenge of serving a wider range of student needs even as total funding contracts.

 

The short-term tools that states used during the Great Recession - budget deferrals, reserve drawdowns, spending cuts and service reductions, and temporary tax hikes - may provide temporary fixes, but are poorly suited to structural and demographic shifts demanding long-range system redesign. Accordingly, state leaders must develop policy responses that enable local school systems to both adapt and thrive amid these changing circumstances.

School Choice

Source: EdChoice

Date: 6/25/26

123s of School Choice 2026 Edition

To aid readers in better understanding the impact of choice programs on students, the education system, and society, EdChoice has released a new edition of The 123s of School Choice. This publication reviews the available research on voucher programs, education savings accounts, and tax-credit scholarship programs in the United States and organizes the research by eight distinct outcomes.

School Finance and Funding

Source: Commonwealth Foundation

Date: 6/25/26

2026 State of Education Spending in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is one of the only states permitting local school boards virtually unlimited authority to increase local property taxes under a generous index, without taxpayer input, even as districts hold reserve fund balances in excess of $7 billion.

 

Restructuring the Basic Education Funding (BEF) formula, restoring public sector workers' rights, fully reforming public pensions, and increasing educational choice - through Lifeline Scholarships the expansion of Pennsylvania's tax credit scholarships and opting in to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) - would ensure educational dollars focus on students.

Student Achievement

Source: EdNext

Date: 6/25/26

How a Gifted Program Impacts Disadvantaged Students

Our study highlights aspects of a gifted program that benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged students. While prior research has focused on whether gifted programs affect cognitive measures like test scores, we show the importance of supporting non-cognitive development. We also show that this has outsized positive effects for boys, though outcomes for all students improve. Establishing eligibility for gifted programs with IQ testing, rather than relying solely on behavior-based metrics like grades or teacher recommendations, appears to be a powerful way to identify and support less-engaged boys with strong academic potential.

Review of The Economic Impact from Colorado's Choice to Participate in the "Education Freedom Tax Credit" Provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Source: Common Sense Institute

Reviewed by: Joydeep Roy, Teachers College, Columbia University

The Common Sense Institute recently published a report declaring large potential benefits of the federal education tax-credit voucher program created through President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill. However, the report's claims about the improvements the program would create for Colorado are unlikely to materialize.

Joydeep Roy of Teachers College, Columbia University explains why in his review of The Economic Impact from Colorado's Choice to Participate in the "Education Freedom Tax Credit" Provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Judge Voids Trump Admin. Rule Excluding Education From 'Professional' Degrees

By: Matthew Stone, EdWeek

"The Wednesday ruling from Judge Beryl Howell came in response to lawsuits from professional health care organizations and the National Education Association that challenged the agency's May regulation limiting the definition of 'professional' degrees to just 11 mostly doctoral-level degrees."

For Working Parents, the Boundary Between Work and Family Is Often Blurred

By: Rachel Minkin , Luona Lin , Dana Braga and Kiley Hurst, Pew Research Center

"Parents - especially moms - often carry the mental load that comes with trying to balance what their families need with what their work demands. And with so many obligations, it's not surprising that working parents sometimes feel like they can't give 100% at home or at work."

Updated Eligibility Income Limits for Scholarship Recipients for the New Federal Tax Credit for Scholarships

By: Drew Catt, EdChoice

"...the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R), which is responsible for updating AGMI, released the fiscal year 2026 income limits data that includes median income by area."

Public Schooling in America: Our 2026 Report Card on the States

By: Network for Public Education

"What the data revealed is a troubling and consistent pattern. The states most aggressively redirecting public funds toward private alternatives - charter schools, voucher programs, and education savings accounts - are the same states most neglectful of their public schools, their teachers, and their students."

Is It Really Economic Development When Schools Pay the Bill?

By: Anthony Elmo, School Business Now

"But in many communities, school funding challenges can be linked back to something that is beyond the districts' control: corporate tax giveaways. Cities, counties, and development agencies routinely approve corporate tax abatements in the name of "economic development." Too often, money that otherwise would have gone to schools via property taxes is included in those deals without input from district leaders."

GreatLakesCenter.org