DeWine launches new attendance dashboard for data-driven ‘equitable’ resource allocation
A new Statewide Attendance Dashboard offers weekly-updated, aggregated statistics on chronic absenteeism, defined as students missing 10% or more of required school hours for any reason.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce announced the new portal, which drew mixed reactions: some called it “cute,” while others asked what problem it actually solves.
According to DeWine, the dashboard aims to provide transparency so communities can spot patterns early and intervene. Users can view trends by district, school building, and grade level, and categorize absences as “satisfactory” to “severe.”
But what does intervention actually look like?
With support from the nation’s largest teachers union, Ohio’s National Education Association chapter president sheds light on the portal’s union backing.
Jeff Wensing, OEA’s president, told 10 TV that the teachers’ union supports the dashboard for its potential to “uncover underlying issues and get kids back in school faster.” Wensing added that he hopes the state will pair the tool with additional funding and resources to address the barriers it reveals.
“The sooner you can identify that and then support the student and that family in that area and make sure they get to school, the better it’s going to be,” he told the outlet.
This aligns with the union’s broader priorities, including increased funding for public schools, mental health supports, family outreach, and “wraparound services.”
There’s just one problem: The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. With one tiny caveat allowing updates for “enhancements” or law changes, the dashboard’s privacy policy says it is FERPA compliant, collects and displays no personally identifiable information — no names, student IDs, exact absence dates, or individual records.
With Ohio’s Student Privacy Act adding further state-level safeguards, the voluntary dashboard can not legally collect information on root causes. So, what information is being collected and for what purpose?
According to Ohio’s Attendance Guide, chronic absence data “can inform the budget process and be used to distribute staff and resources more efficiently and equitably.” It also encourages districts to ask: “Does our district prioritize the distribution of resources to schools with higher rates of chronic absence and large populations of vulnerable students?”
In addition, the Student Wellness page explicitly mentions using student/community data to guide planning and resource decisions by tying attendance dashboards to strategic decision-making for prevention, early intervention, staffing, and budgeting.
This fits a broader national trend where aggregated education data is increasingly shaping “equity”-focused decisions on grants, pilot programs, and supplemental funding.
While core school funding formulas remain tied to enrollment, experts warn that even FERPA-compliant aggregated data can be manipulated to tell a desired story through selective framing, omitted variables, or linkage with external information — a known risk in education policy.
According to the Cato Institute, data manipulation and gaming are common with top-down approaches like dashboards, which push schools to reclassify absences or adjust metrics to meet targets.
Meanwhile, critics argue that focusing on students ignores broader issues in education, such as the high rates of chronic teacher absenteeism in public schools—driven by union protections and weak incentives.
For now, the dashboard remains a modest transparency step in Ohio’s efforts to cut chronic absenteeism. Its long-term impact, however, will depend on whether communities use the numbers to support competitive pathways to student success or to serve as a centralized driver of increased funding and policy battles.
