Empty Desks

Educators tell us that students who miss 20 or more days of school in an academic year—and there are 85,000 of them in Maryland—have lower test scores, lower graduation rates and even lower chances of getting into college or of breaking the cycle of poverty.

WYPR’s Gwendolyn Glenn is spending the next year meeting with educators, students, parents, researchers and others to explore the causes and effects of chronic absenteeism and the solutions being offered by city and county officials.

Contact Gwendolyn Glenn at gglenn@wypr.org

Joel McCord is the editor

Empty Desks is made possible through a grant from the Open Society Institute—Baltimore.