Cutting welfare over truancy would only dig Missouri families deeper into poverty

Parents do bear some responsibility for making sure their children get to school. But a proposal by a Missouri legislator to cut government assistance to families whose children miss too many days is not the right solution to solve chronic attendance problems in some districts, including Kansas City.

State Rep. Jeff Porter, a Montgomery City Republican, has filed what he calls “a parent accountability bill” that would slash up to 35% of a family’s government assistance for six months when their K-12 student does not attend school at least 90% of the time.

Porter told the Missourinet news site this week that he believes the legislation would be “a win-win for everybody.” Except of course for the struggling families already burdened with the many hardships of poverty. Six months without benefits could devastate a family already in financial distress.

But Porter said “the taxpayers of Missouri would like to make sure the kids are going to school because we are providing the income. We need to have some assurance that the kids are in school.”

Find another way.

We think such legislation unfairly punishes an entire family for the actions of a child. Teens skip school all the time, and parents have no idea it’s happening.

Kansas City Public School officials said district attendance issues are not necessarily due to a lack of parental responsibility. “It’s lack of stable housing, a lack of resources and so many other community related issues,” including violence, said Kelly Wachel, district spokeswoman.

Oftentimes, a child’s chronic absences are tied to family poverty — staying home to look after younger siblings while parents work or are working themselves to supplement household income. Stripping the family of resources they receive to ease the burdens of poverty would only make the problem worse not better.

Of course children need to be in school, and persistent truancy is not acceptable. But Missouri needs to focus on a plan that addresses all chronically truant students and not just target struggling families.

The punishment for missing school should not be to take money from the family, which could then cause them to miss rent payments or pay for doctor visits too. Porter’s legislation would not take away food stamps.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education requires schools to have 90% of their students in school 90% of the time to get full credit for attendance, one of the criteria measured annually by the state and tied to state accreditation.

About 82% of Missouri’s K-12 public school children attend school 90% of the time.

More than once, poor student attendance has stood in the way of KCPS scoring in range to regain state accreditation — a status it lost in 2011.

Linking welfare benefits to student attendance is not a new concept. Michigan made this move in 2019 despite pushback from advocates for families in poverty who protested that struggling parents were being singled out and punished for things the children of more affluent parents do all the time.

The Michigan Department of Education did not respond to calls from The Star to learn whether the restriction on government assistance has actually worked to improve attendance.

Some districts in the Kansas City area have tried incentive programs to encourage students to more regularly show up to school. Raytown schools offer students a chance to toss their name into an end-of-the-year raffle for a brand new car every month they are in school 95% of the time.

Porter’s proposal may be well-intended but as a solution it’s flawed.

“Legislators who continue trying to pass legislation that directly impacts areas like Kansas City and St. Louis with no connection to or understanding of what is happening in those areas only hurts us and it’s absurd,” Wachel said.

If Missouri legislators really want to help districts solve poor attendance problems, talk to more district leaders — urban and rural — and attack the causes in those areas with solutions that benefit all students and don’t punish the poor.