America Has a School Attendance Crisis

During the pandemic, the numbers of children not attending school reached record levels, but four years on, children are still missing their education at troubling rates.

When the coronavirus hit, it became normal to see some children miss several days of school by merely not logging on for online instruction, but this trend has persisted in high poverty areas even as students are back in person.

Nationally, the rate of chronic absenteeism, which officials define as missing at least 10 percent of school days (or 18 in a year), doubled between the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years, according to The Associated Press.

That brought it to a whopping 28 percent of students missing a significant portion of their education and likely to miss out on key lessons, impacting them for a lifetime. The most recent data shows only slight improvement, and some cities continue to report more than 40 percent of the student body as “chronically absent.”

As school attendance remains at startling lows, the reduced educational achievement and diminishing mental health of the next generation is not surprising, experts say.

With so many children forced to take their classes online during the pandemic, some started seeing education as a joke. And despite the social isolation that kept kids away from their friends and impacted their mental health, many kids have normalized skipping school after those years of Zoom classes and remote learning, especially if they already fell behind in what they were supposed to be learning.

Why School Absences Matter

Continued truancy in school leads to learning gaps and widespread labor and economic disruptions.

School absenteeism rules first started in the 1800s to prepare young people for factory jobs, which demanded on-time performance. But today, they hold a very different importance in society.

“Today, even though factory work is on the decline, absenteeism is just as important. Chronic absenteeism from school leaves people unable to participate in today’s high-technology knowledge economy,” Boston University business professor Jay Zagorsky told Newsweek.

Many chronically absent students, especially younger ones, are only missing from school because of their parent’s difficulties, not their own desire to skip classes. They then lack the essential reading, writing and math skills to progress forward in their education.

“It will most certainly affect long-term labor productivity, which isn’t good for the economy,” Keisha Blair, an economist and the founder of the Institute on Holistic Wealth, told Newsweek.

“It could also mean an undereducated workforce not equipped to deal with rapid technological change. In a highly competitive global economy, this puts the United States at a disadvantage down the road.”

Beyond the upcoming labor disruptions though, there is a considerable social gap building for the kids who saw their education suffer as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Kids learn far more than just academics in school,” Blair said. “They develop social skills and they learn to problem solve and iterate on the fly with peers and in teams. They learn to get out of their comfort zone and build resilience.”

Today, children and young adults are reporting some of the highest rates of mental-health problems or disorders ever recorded.

While this in part could be explained by the generation’s greater awareness of mental health in general, there is evidence that the disruptions to education and widespread social isolation had unforeseen consequences on mental health and social connection.

Roughly one in four youth met the criteria for a lifetime mental disorder, according to YouthGov.com, and 44 percent of high school students reported feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Solutions

Ultimately, when it comes to making up for lost time in school, there is no one easy answer. Some suggest free grade-school breakfasts and lunches in neighborhoods where many kids are missing school to incentivize parents to get their kids back into education.

Others say for high school students, who typically choose to miss school due to their own choices, a better class schedule might help.

“Teenagers’ sleep schedule is different than adults,” Zagorsky said. “Teens sleeping through the start of school are more likely to roll over and go back to bed than deal with the hassle of signing in late with a parental note.”

Above all, preventing further absenteeism remains crucial.

“It is a domino effect,” Tiffany Sorya, the CEO of homeschooling services company Novel Education Group, told Newsweek.

Sorya said during the pandemic, children missing school became a major problem, often leading to more missed days and reduced learning.

“The issue is that schools still pushed students through to the next grade, although they did not successfully learn the foundational skills from the previous school year,” Sorya said. “This pattern continues and the consequence is a child in fourth or fifth grade who is reading and writing at a second-grade level.”

For those who can afford it, Sorya said the only option for families at that point is to hire a tutor, but the remaining kids suffer.

“Schools should be able to provide multi-level access points within each grade in order to accommodate for different foundational capabilities,” Sorya said. “This would allow for progress to be made for kids who have gaps in learning due to absenteeism. Students will not naturally catch up to their grade level if they are several grades behind.”

The low-income kids who don’t receive help, or even worse, continue missing class will likely see their ability to earn a better education or a highly paid job stripped away, Sorya said.

Is Education Necessary for Success?

At the same time as many low-income children are falling through the cracks, billionaires like Elon Musk and Jack Ma have publicly criticized the idea of education as necessary to find success later in life.

That means this general absenteeism present in elementary, middle and high schools can often continue into college, with many students forgoing what used to be seen as a requirement to a higher paying job,

“Elon Musk, and Jack Ma famously said that they don’t require a college degree for their jobs, but have alternate ways to identify skills,” Nita Chhinzer, an associate professor at the Canadian University of Guelph’s Department of Management, told Newsweek.

“In the past, employers were using college degrees and university degrees as indicators of skills learning potential of a person.

“Recent research has suggested that employers are eliminating the requirement for a college degree in their applicant requirements. Students are hearing this information, and it’s impacting their perspective towards education.”

HR and workplace leaders are still wary about this shift, though, as for the everyday person that won’t make it to billionaire status or even financial independence without a traditional education, this also could bleed into the future workforce.

“The long-term impact is a population that is ill-prepared with the social, emotional and intellectual capacity to succeed in the workplace,” David Dye, president of leadership development program Let’s Grow Leaders, told Newsweek.

Dye said an increased tolerance for absenteeism without consequence leads to long-term habits and expectations that young adults carry with them, and this can even see itself appear as a cause in workplace conflict.

“This will continue to accelerate the income divide as more people lack the social, emotional and intellectual capacity to thrive professionally,” Dye said.