This article was originally published in Ohio Capital Journal.
The bipartisan sponsors of a new bill to target chronic absenteeism want to model a piece of advice from novelist Jean Shepherd: “In God we trust, all others pay cash.”
In a proposed two-year pilot program, Republican state Rep. Bill Seitz and Democratic Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, both of Cincinnati, said cash transfers would be sent to kindergarteners and ninth graders to jumpstart school attendance which has long suffered in the state, but that was exacerbated by a global pandemic.
“This is the number one issue we are facing in education,” Isaacsohn told the House Primary & Secondary Education Committee this week. “It is an absolute emergency and we need to act like it.”
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According to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce , prior to the pandemic, kindergarteners considered chronically absent – missing 10% or more of a school year for any reason – registered at 11%. In the last school year, the rate ballooned to 29%.