From the Michigan Capital Confidential:
By TOM GANTER, Oct. 15, 2015

Two-Thirds of Detroit Students 'Chronically Absent'
Despite a new attendance policy that could see truant students and their parents actually prosecuted in court, more than two-thirds of the students enrolled in the Detroit school district are still classified as “chronically absent.” This is defined by the state as missing more than 10 school days in a year.

Detroit's students could be missing far more than 10 days of school as the state report doesn't quantify the total amount of missed school days. In 2013, Keith Johnson, who was then president of the Detroit teachers union, said data showed the average high school student in Detroit Public Schools missed 46 days of schools in 2011-12.

Detroit saw 67.1 percent of all its students deemed chronically absent in 2013-14, the latest year data is available. The statewide average is 25.5 percent. Even the troubled Education Achievement Authority, the state office given oversight of Michigan’s worst-performing individual schools, experienced chronic absence in just 23.7 percent of its students.

The new Detroit Public Schools truancy policy calls for possible home visits by state agency workers when a student has six unexcused absences. After nine unexcused absences, students and their parents can be charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

The new program was launched in the 2013-14 school year but doesn’t appear to have had much impact so far. In the year before that, 67.5 percent of DPS students were classified as chronically absent.