By the Madison Metropolitan School Districts' definition of chronic absenteeism, during the 2014 - 2015 School year, 38% of all African American students were recorded as chronically absent.

Chronic Absenteeism is defined as missing about 18 days during the course of the school year which materializes at 10% of the 180 day school year.

The average, chronically absent African-American student during the 2014-15 (which represents 38% of African American enrolled students) missed approximately 37 days or 20% of the school year.
 
The average African-American Madison Public School student attends school 6.2 fewer days than the average student in MMSD. The average White student attends school 2.4 more days than average of all MMSD.
 
This means that the attendance gap between White and African-American students corresponds to about nine days of instruction during the year.
 
Hence, as we enter into discussions of "Academic Achievement Gaps," possibly, we should first address the question of "Student Attendance Gaps" and why they occur.
 
The predicate or preamble of the dialog about the appropriate actions of education is to first insure that students are in school so that vital educational activities could be performed and appropriately measured.
 
It's pretty hard to instruct a child who is not at school.
 
Chronic absenteeism serves as an important indicator, "an early warning sign" that something is wrong. Often, it predicts that a student is at risk for school failure and leaving school before graduation.
 

The question arises, is this a situation in which the student is exercising his or her discretion to attend or not attend school or are there deeper more visceral issues?

Today, more than 50% of all students who attend Madison Public Schools receive free and reduced lunches, which means that those students are from families at or below the federal poverty level.

And to qualify ... a family of four has to have an income of $29,000 or less.

Currently, more than 70% of all African American students enrolled in the Madison Public School System receive free or reduced lunches.

There is a correlation.

• The majority of African American children live in poverty.
• The majority of African American children have inadequate housing.
• The majority of African American children have poor or nonexistent healthcare.
• For the majority of African American children, their only meal may be what they receive at school.
• Far too many African American children spend the majority of their day trying to figure out how to raise, feed and protect their siblings.

Absenteeism is not the problem but the symptom of the problem.

As Maslow ascribed in 1943 and again in 1954, unless basic physical requirements of human survival (food, shelter, safety, etc.) are met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail.

Many African American children do not have trouble learning as much as they have trouble living.