As schools continue to recover from the pandemic, there’s one troubling COVID symptom they can’t seem to shake: record-setting absenteeism. In the 2021-22 school year, more than one in four U.S. public school students missed at least 10% of school days. Before the pandemic, it was closer to one in seven, the Associated Press reported, […]
Kentucky’s new School Report Card shows the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic on student learning. Interim Education Commissioner Robin Fields Kinney told reporters Tuesday that “a multi-year recovery period” will likely be needed “before school performance really gets back” to pre-pandemic levels. Kinney and other state education officials briefed reporters on newly released assessment […]
It’s well established that chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed since the pandemic. But a new analysis of federal data shows the problem may be worse than previously understood. Two out of three students were enrolled in schools with high or extreme rates of chronic absenteeism during the 2021-22 school year — more than double the rate […]
This essay originally appeared at FutureEd. Student testing at the national, state and local levels has given policymakers a clear, up-to-date picture of learning loss during the pandemic. But on another key recovery metric, student absenteeism, reporting has lagged badly in many states, making it difficult to know if the hundreds of millions of dollars […]
As a new school year gets underway in California, districts are desperately trying to lure thousands of missing, tardy and truant students back to the classroom in what many view as a pivotal moment for education in California. In 2021-22, 30% of students in California’s public schools were chronically absent, an all-time high and more […]