Truancy Statistics

Truancy and ungovernability case rates peaked at age 15 and runaway case rates peaked at age 16. In contrast, status liquor law violation case rates increased continuously with age: from 1.8 at age 15 to 6.3 at age 17.

While there is not an abundance of national truancy data, some metropolitan areas report thousands of unexcused absences each day.

(source: DeKalb, Jay, “Student Truancy,” ERIC Digest 125, April 1999.)

Data from Wisconsin show that during the 1998-99 school year, 15,600 students or 1.6% of enrolled students were truant per day. Truancy accounted for about 1/3 of total

absences that year. Truancy rates in the 10 largest urban school districts were twice as high as the state average.

Legislative Audit Committee of the State of Wisconsin, “A Best Practices Review: Truancy Reduction Efforts,” August 2000.

Students with behavioral problems are often assigned to a counselor, but school counselors have large caseloads. Public high schools employed one counselor for every 284 students in 2002. Large schools (1,200+ students) employed one counselor for every 335 students. Counselors in schools with over 50% minority enrollment were responsible for 22% more students than their colleagues in low minority enrollment schools – 313 compared to 256 students.

National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Response Survey System, “Table 12: Number of guidance staff and counselors, and the number of students per guidance staff and per counselor assigned to public high school students, by selected school,”

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/frss/publications/2003015/images/tab12.gif, October 1, 2004.