My testimony today focuses on the Office of the State Superintendent’s FY 2026 budget proposal with attention to investments that drive post-pandemic recovery improvements to attendance and potential risks to federal revenue. 

Chronic absenteeism remains a systemwide challenge. 

Reaching the District’s goal to reduce chronic absenteeism by half by school year 2026-27 will require sustained and targeted investment. Despite progress since the peak of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism is still higher than pre-pandemic norms. In school year 2023-24, 40 percent of students were chronically absent—missing at least 10 percent of the school year.¹ Early indicators from school year 2024-25 show that the rate of improvement has slowed: As of November 2024, the share of chronically absent students declined by 3 percentage points year-over-year, compared to a 6-percentage point decrease in previous November.²

The FY 2026 budget includes promising strategies to improve attendance. 

Several investments in the proposed OSSE budget have shown positive results and should be preserved or expanded: 

• High impact tutoring or HIT ($3 million): In addition to academic benefits, HIT demonstrably improves attendance. Students are more likely to attend school on tutoring days, reflecting the strengths of the relationships they have with their tutors.³

• Advanced Technical Center or ATC ($7 million): Students who attend Career and Technical Education (CTE) at the ATC—particularly in cybersecurity and health pathways —attend school more regularly, averaging 13 more days per year than their peers.⁴ The planned expansion in Ward 8 can increase access and benefits.  

• Other attendance supports: Further investments in the Department of Human Services’ Truancy Reduction Program (especially the 6-month early intervention PASS program or students who completed the 90-day Brief Case Management pilot),⁵ and attendance initiatives like nudge letters continue effective approaches to decrease chronic absenteeism with particular populations.⁶

Future federal funding poses significant uncertainty.  

OSSE’s proposed FY 2026 budget depends heavily on federal dollars—59 percent of the agency’s total funding. The current proposed changes in the federal budget, if enacted by Congress, would reduce or restructure key education programs: 

• DC TAG could be eliminated, affecting higher education access for D.C.’s high school alumni who attend public universities or private HBCUs and nonprofit institutions in the area. 

• Targeted support could decrease for programs of adult education, English Language Acquisition, and other student supports, which would be combined into a single grant with reduced funding, potentially cutting federal supports by at least 60 percent (although the precise impact on D.C. is unknown).  

• A new grant to states would consolidate multiple formula-driven funding streams into one (including Title I), with greater flexibility on how to spend them.  

There is a lot of uncertainty around these federal changes, but it would be prudent to identify where there are greater risks to education funding from OSSE for D.C.’s schools as we move through this budget cycle.

Endnotes

1. Coffin, C. and Mason, H. 2025. State of D.C. Schools: Strong system health and modest progress. D.C. Policy Center. Retrieved from https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/state-of-d-c-schools-2023-24/
2. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). 2025. “2024-25 Attendance Brief (July 8 – November 22, 2024).” OSSE. Retrieved from https://osse.dc.gov/node/1783131 
3. National Student Support Accelerator. 2024. “Early Findings Show Evidence that High-Impact Tutoring Increases Student Attendance in D.C. Schools.” National Student Support Accelerator. Retrieved from https://nssa.stanford.edu/news/early-findings-show-evidence-high-impact-tutoring-increases-student-attendance-dc-schools 
4. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). 2023. District of Columbia Attendance Report, 2022-23 School Year. OSSE. Retrieved from https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/2022-23%20Attendance%20Report_FINAL_0.pdf 
5. Department of Human Services (DHS). 2025. Truancy Reduction Pilot Program. DHS. Retrieved from https://lims.dccouncil.gov/downloads/LIMS/57815/Introduction/RC26-0059-Introduction.pdf?Id=212917  
6. Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME). 2023. “EdSight – EveryDay Labs End of SY22-23 Update.” DME. Retrieved from https://dme.dc.gov/page/edsight-%E2%80%93-everyday-labs-end-sy-22-23-update