A record number of students are skipping school, propelling chronic absenteeism to a national crisis, according to an analysis of public-school attendance data.
The analysis comes as public school districts nationwide are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and spending decisions related to federal COVID-era funding, which is running out after schools received windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.
Chronic absenteeism – the percentage of students who missed at least 10% of a school year – surged from 15% of students in 2018 to 28% in 2022, according to an American Enterprise Institute analysis, “Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic.”
