Find What Works: Schools
← All source documentsDownload current version (7d3d9af7c9cf)
Source document

docs/qa_reports/philly/__cross_publisher_attendance.md

Served verbatim from the project repository. Internal working document conventions apply: documents may reference file paths, branch names, and findings-ledger anchors from the repo.

Cross-publisher (iii-b) — attendance / chronic-absenteeism proxy

SDP '% with 90%+ attendance' vs Future Ready PA 'Regular Attendance' (PercentPersistentAttendance) (students attending 90%+ of days), same district-run schools, 2023-24 attendance on both sides, all students. Both are base-case verified against their own source files (absenteeism_full_qa.py); this compares the two publishers to each other. Δ = Future Ready − SDP.

Year alignment: Both sides describe 2023-24 attendance. The state's value comes from its 2024-25 workbook (PDE glossary: 'a lagging indicator indicating data is from the year prior to the reporting year').

Verdict: NOT_SPLICEABLE

Not interchangeable, but closely related: for 216 district-run schools in 2023-24, the state's figure runs a median +1.73 points above the district's (fewer students below 90%), 27.8% of schools agree within ±1, 97.2% within ±5, 0 differ by more than 10, r = 0.9948. The per-school difference ranges from -3.90 to +6.51, so the offset is a central tendency, not a one-directional gap at every school. The pre-committed splice threshold (median within 0.5 and 80% of schools within ±1) is not met, so cross-sector (charter vs district) comparisons use the state's measure on BOTH sides and never mix publishers in one series. POSSIBLE EXPLANATION (untested): the publishers' eligibility rules differ — PDE counts only students enrolled 90+ school days (PDE Future Ready glossary), the district counts students enrolled 10+ days at the school (SDP, Student Attendance Patterns in Philadelphia 2017-18 to 2021-22, June 2023). If short-enrollment records have lower attendance, that would push the state's rate up; but neither the excluded share nor the excluded records' attendance is published, so how much of the offset it explains is unknown. Local attendance coding, attribution of transfers, revisions, and rounding are other candidates. PER-YEAR SWEEP (same attendance year on both sides): the median offset is +0.77 to +1.73 across the overlapping years (2020-21 +0.77, 2021-22 +1.69, 2022-23 +1.71, 2023-24 +1.73), with r ≥ 0.9934 in every year; no year stands out as a basis change. CORRECTION (2026-09-07): an earlier version of this check compared the state's workbook year to the district's attendance year and reported ~11-point gaps in 2020-21/2021-22 and a 'basis change at 2022-23'. That was a year misalignment (the state's attendance element lags one year); see report_year_matched_diagnostic. SCOPE: this check covers district-run schools only, in the years both publishers describe (2020-21 onward); it does not test charter schools, the two pre-pandemic years, or whether local attendance coding is identical across sectors.

Summary (2023-24)

{
  "sdp_year": "2023-24",
  "frpi_year_served": "2023-24",
  "frpi_workbook": "2024-25",
  "n_pairs": 216,
  "median_delta": 1.725,
  "mean_delta": 1.715,
  "stdev_delta": 1.717,
  "min_delta": -3.9,
  "max_delta": 6.51,
  "pct_within_1": 27.8,
  "pct_within_2": 55.1,
  "pct_within_5": 97.2,
  "n_abs_gt_10": 0,
  "pearson_r": 0.9948,
  "sdp_mean_pct_90plus": 60.0,
  "frpi_mean_regular": 61.72,
  "publishers": {
    "sdp": "School District of Philadelphia, '% with 90%+ Attendance (Yearly)' (sdp_attendance_90_school); students enrolled 10+ days at the school",
    "frpi": "PA Dept. of Education, Future Ready PA Index 'Regular Attendance' / PercentPersistentAttendance (futurereadypa_performance_<year+1>; lagging indicator, stored under the attendance year); students enrolled 90+ school days"
  },
  "delta_definition": "frpi \u2212 sdp, in percent of students (positive = the state shows MORE students at 90%+, i.e. FEWER below 90%)",
  "year_alignment": "Both sides describe 2023-24 attendance. The state's value comes from its 2024-25 workbook (PDE glossary: 'a lagging indicator indicating data is from the year prior to the reporting year').",
  "splice_thresholds": {
    "median_abs_delta_max": 0.5,
    "pct_within_1_min": 80.0
  },
  "verdict": "NOT_SPLICEABLE"
}

Per year, correctly aligned (same attendance year on both sides)

| attendance year | state workbook | schools | median Δ | within ±1 | within ±5 | |Δ| > 10 | r | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 212 | +0.77 | 61.8% | 99.1% | 0 | 0.9981 | | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 213 | +1.69 | 21.6% | 94.8% | 0 | 0.9934 | | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 215 | +1.71 | 22.3% | 97.7% | 0 | 0.9955 | | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 216 | +1.73 | 27.8% | 97.2% | 0 | 0.9948 |

Diagnostic: report-year-matched (the earlier, MISALIGNED comparison)

District attendance year Y vs the state's workbook labeled Y, whose attendance element describes Y−1. This reproduces the ~11-point gaps the earlier version of this check attributed to a basis change.

| district year | state workbook | state attendance year | schools | median Δ | within ±1 | within ±5 | |Δ| > 10 | r | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 2020-21 | 2020-21 | 2019-20 | 212 | +11.66 | 3.3% | 27.4% | 119 | 0.8285 | | 2021-22 | 2021-22 | 2020-21 | 212 | +11.54 | 3.3% | 17.9% | 128 | 0.8684 | | 2022-23 | 2022-23 | 2021-22 | 213 | -0.48 | 16.9% | 60.6% | 35 | 0.9146 | | 2023-24 | 2023-24 | 2022-23 | 215 | +1.13 | 19.5% | 61.9% | 23 | 0.92 | | 2024-25 | 2024-25 | 2023-24 | 216 | +1.11 | 19.9% | 74.5% | 12 | 0.952 |

By school type (served directory)

{
  "REGULAR": {
    "n": 216,
    "median_delta": 1.73,
    "pct_within_2": 55.1
  }
}

Schools differing by more than 10 points (0)

Largest 20 absolute deltas

  • ULCS 4280: SDP=63.29 FRPI=69.80 Δ=+6.51
  • ULCS 5700: SDP=30.42 FRPI=36.20 Δ=+5.78
  • ULCS 4380: SDP=39.92 FRPI=45.60 Δ=+5.68
  • ULCS 2390: SDP=46.27 FRPI=51.50 Δ=+5.23
  • ULCS 4240: SDP=43.93 FRPI=49.10 Δ=+5.17
  • ULCS 1470: SDP=45.59 FRPI=50.60 Δ=+5.01
  • ULCS 2260: SDP=60.39 FRPI=65.30 Δ=+4.91
  • ULCS 5160: SDP=35.01 FRPI=39.90 Δ=+4.89
  • ULCS 6030: SDP=40.47 FRPI=45.30 Δ=+4.83
  • ULCS 1300: SDP=50.15 FRPI=54.80 Δ=+4.65
  • ULCS 1360: SDP=42.07 FRPI=46.70 Δ=+4.63
  • ULCS 5430: SDP=58.69 FRPI=63.30 Δ=+4.61
  • ULCS 2000: SDP=39.87 FRPI=44.30 Δ=+4.43
  • ULCS 4300: SDP=42.70 FRPI=47.10 Δ=+4.40
  • ULCS 5400: SDP=55.50 FRPI=59.90 Δ=+4.40
  • ULCS 5660: SDP=42.86 FRPI=47.20 Δ=+4.34
  • ULCS 2010: SDP=31.66 FRPI=35.70 Δ=+4.04
  • ULCS 6470: SDP=47.17 FRPI=51.20 Δ=+4.03
  • ULCS 5340: SDP=50.21 FRPI=54.20 Δ=+3.99
  • ULCS 6090: SDP=35.67 FRPI=39.60 Δ=+3.93