During the 2015-16 school year, about one in seven students was chronically absent, missing at least 10 percent of school days. An early warning sign of academic risk and school dropout, chronic absence predicts school failure more reliably than test scores. To understand the drivers of chronic absence, state boards of education should examine…

This report explains how welfare reform in New Jersey has served as an occasion for attempts to restructure the relations between public agencies and private service providers, and that these attempts raise important questions about who will and ought to play a part in the state's welfare programs. The historical context for privatization has…