Romero, Mariajose and Young-Sun Lee. National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University. October 2007. This brief reveals a significant level of absenteeism in the early school years, especially among low-income children, and confirms its detrimental effects on school success by examining children from across various incomes and race/ethnicity groups in a nationally representative sample of children entering kindergarten. Early absenteeism negatively impacted academic achievement in reading, math, and general knowledge in the early school years. And greater absenteeism in kindergarten was associated with lower achievement at the end of first grade. On average, children missing 10% or more of the school year scored five points less than did those who were absent up to 3% of the school year in kindergarten.