Chronic absenteeism among U.S. students has nearly doubled since before the pandemic, and experts fear plummeting test scores and soaring learning loss will be impossible to correct without fixing it.
New data released on the Return 2 Learn Tracker from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shows chronic absenteeism, defined as students missing more than 10 percent of the school year, went from 15 percent in 2018 to 29 percent in 2022.
The problem is particularly prominent in districts that already have a history of trouble with student success, such as low-achieving schools, ones with high poverty rates and districts with a high minority population.
“We’re able to see that there are really big increases, much larger increases in traditionally disadvantaged districts,” said Nat Malkus, senior fellow and deputy director of the Education Policy Studies at AEI, who worked on the tracker.
Between 2018 and 2022, there was a 17 percentage point jump in chronic absenteeism among low-achieving districts compared to only 10 points in high-achieving ones, according to the tracker. In high-poverty […]
There should be more laws preventing the absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism is a result of the increase in anxiety and depression both during and following the pandemic. There is also a lack of resources to refer and treat. This has little to do with parents.