Principal Quality and Student Attendance

Abstract

Student attendance is increasingly recognized as an important measure of educational success, which has spurred a body of research examining the extent to which schools can affect this outcome. However, prior work almost exclusively focuses on teachers, and no studies have explicitly examined the importance of school leaders. This study begins to fill this gap by estimating principal value-added to student absences. Drawing on statewide data from Tennessee over a decade, I find that principal effects on student absences are comparable in magnitude to effects on student achievement. Moving from the 25th to 75th percentile in principal value-added decreases student absences by 1.4 instructional days and lowers the probability of chronic absenteeism by 4 percentage points. Principals have larger effects in urban and high-poverty schools, which also have the highest baseline absenteeism rates. Finally, principals who excel at decreasing student absences may not be those who excel at increasing student test scores, and high-stakes accountability measures, such as supervisor ratings, fail to identify principals who decrease student absenteeism.