Thousands of Ohio students are M.I.A. from school and losing the opportunity to reach their potential. Nearly 385,000 students—about one in every four—were “chronically absent” in 2024–25, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of the school year. Of these students, 125,000 were absent more than 20 percent of the year, or about two months’ worth of school. In districts such as Cleveland, Lorain, and Youngstown, more than half of students were chronically absent. Based on preliminary data, attendance appears little improved in 2025–26.
Ohio has pursued various ideas to address this crisis. Governor DeWine pledged to dramatically cut absenteeism. State officials have created toolkits to provide advice for schools. A taskforce was convened and offered some helpful recommendations. Ohio has a philanthropy-led attendance effort. We at Fordham have suggested coaches and a stronger report-card measure to combat absenteeism.
These initiatives and ideas all have merit, but they may not be enough to vanquish widespread absenteeism. To add extra oomph, state policymakers should explore funding levers. One possibility in this realm is a move to an attendance-based school funding formula—an approach to funding that the nation’s two largest states (California and Texas) implement and that has encouraged their schools to take daily attendance seriously.
Funding actual attendance, not just enrollment
Ohio provides state aid based on pupil enrollments.[1] Enrollment-driven funding is common across the U.S., but it’s also blind as to whether students actually show up for school. All that matters is whether students are on a school’s membership roll—not if they attend. Since attendance has no bearing on funding levels, schools aren’t as likely to take proactive measures, such as improved bussing, home visits and family supports, or even initiatives that directly reward students when they are present.
In contrast to Ohio’s enrollment-based system, California, Texas, and four other states fund schools based on attendance. Because state funding hinges on attendance, schools pay closer attention to it. In a recent report, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office argued in favor of maintaining an attendance-based system and wrote the following:
(1) the ADA [average daily attendance]‑based funding model creates a fiscal incentive for districts to prioritize actions that support increased attendance; (2) statewide attendance rates improved after the state changed its ADA model in the late 1990s to more closely link funding to student attendance; and (3) under the current model, districts have taken recent actions to support attendance.
A smattering of news reports corroborates that California districts do indeed respond to the financial incentive. In advocating for a comprehensive attendance strategy, one school board member recently said that it’s “the biggest [revenue] lever we have... We get paid by who shows up.” Notable also is that California has nearly restored attendance rates to pre-pandemic levels, while Ohio still lags its pre-pandemic marks.
One can also locate similar news stories about Texas districts pushing for attendance to boost their state aid. We also find a state comptroller report (2003) urging Texas schools to prioritize attendance because they can more than recoup their expenses by claiming the additional state dollars. It recommended:
Beef up truancy programs—more students in average daily attendance means more dollars allocated to the district through state funding formulas. Socorro ISD added three attendance officers to increase attendance and could get $1.2 million in additional state revenues over five years.
Lacking financial incentives, Ohio schools don’t have the same urgency as their California and Texas counterparts. In those states, attendance matters—real dollars are at stake—and their schools take more assertive measures to push for it.
Navigating transition challenges
Despite its advantages, attendance-based funding would stir debate in Ohio. If done in isolation, a shift implies reduced funding, as the number of students present on a given day inevitably falls below enrollment.[2] This would raise political hackles, as well as the specter of hold-harmless “guarantees” to keep districts’ state funding afloat—yet also undercuts the fiscal incentive. Equity concerns may also surface, as high-poverty urban districts tend to have lower attendance and could face larger funding reductions under such a transition.
State policymakers would need to thoughtfully navigate these issues, but it could be done by considering the following.
First, Ohio could phase in the change to blunt the immediate impact of the lower attendance-based counts relative to enrollments. The state is already undertaking a phased approach to usher in more accurate (but lower) economically disadvantaged rates for purposes of disadvantaged pupil impact aid (DPIA) funding. A similar approach could be used to phase in attendance and phase out enrollment data for funding purposes.
Second, on the equity issue, Ohio already drives significant supplemental funds to high-poverty schools through DPIA (about $600 million statewide this year). Though this is already a substantial amount, Ohio could consider a bump in DPIA in conjunction with a move to attendance-based funding.[3] This would maintain the incentive—schools could still generate more state aid when more students are present—but also offset reductions associated with a transition.
Third, policymakers should consider the strong likelihood that attendance rates improve in response to the incentive. Should this occur, schools will experience smaller reductions due to the transition (all else being equal in the formula).
Fourth, Ohio already has funding policies embedded in school choice programs that take into account attendance. Online public charter schools must document that students are participating in learning opportunities (the equivalent of attendance)—not merely enrolled—to receive state aid. In addition, students participating in EdChoice lose their scholarships if they accumulate more than 20 unexcused absences. These policies are designed to incentivize attendance and protect taxpayer dollars. Why not apply the same logic to public education funding, writ large?
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Students need to be in class to learn and excel academically. Conversely, bad attendance derails academic progress and could even build habits that undermine employment success when students start working. Ohio must consider all policy options to fight back against absenteeism. Attendance-based funding could be a powerful tool that encourages schools to do everything in their power to help students get to class.
[1] Ohio’s long-standing use of “guarantees” undermine the enrollment basis of the school funding formula, as they provide excess funds to prop up districts losing enrollment. Local funding is entirely disconnected from district enrollments (and attendance), as it depends on the local tax rate and tax base.
[2] The statewide attendance rate was 91.3 percent in 2024–25 and 93.5 percent in 2018–19 (pre-pandemic).
[3] The increase should be additive—that is, in addition to covering an already-needed increase to DPIA to account for the phase in of the lower (but more accurate) counts of low-income students.
