Five years after the start of the pandemic, one of the most surprising ways that school has profoundly, and perhaps permanently, changed is that students aren’t showing up. A recent symposium at the American Enterprise Institute, where scholars shared research on the problem of widespread absenteeism, offered insights into the nationwide issue. Here are the key takeaways:
1. Chronic absenteeism has decreased from its peak in 2021-22, but it’s still 50% higher than before the pandemic.
Roughly speaking, the chronic absenteeism rate nearly doubled after the pandemic, from 15% of students in 2018-19 to a peak of almost 29% in 2021-22. This is the share of students who are missing at least 10%, or 18 or more days, of school a year. Chronic absenteeism has dropped by about 2 to 3 percentage points a year since then, but was still at 23.5% 2023-24, according to the most recent AEI data.
Chronic absenteeism is more than 50% higher than it used to be. There are about 48 million public school students, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Almost 1 in 4 of them, or 11 million students, are missing a lot of school.
2. High-income students and high achievers are also skipping school.
Absenteeism cuts across economic lines. Students from both low- and high-income families are often absent as are high-achieving students. Rates are the highest among students in low-income districts, where 30% of students are chronically absent, according to AEI data.
But even in low-poverty districts, the chronic absenteeism rate has jumped more than 50% from about 10% of students to more than 15%. Similarly, more than 15% of students in the highest-achieving school districts, the top third, are chronically absent, up from 10% in pre-pandemic years.
“Chronic absenteeism affects disadvantaged students more often, but the rise in chronic absenteeism was an unfortunate tide where all boats rose,” said Nat Malkus, deputy director of education policy studies at AEI.
The data show large differences by race and ethnicity, with 36% of Black students, 33% of Latino students, 22% of white students and 15% of Asian students chronically absent. But researchers said once they controlled for income, the racial differences were not so large. In other words, chronic absenteeism rates among Black and white students of the same income are not so disparate.
3. Moderate absenteeism is increasing.
Everyone is missing more school. Jacob Kirksey, an associate professor of education policy at Texas Tech University, tracked 8 million students in three states (Texas, North Carolina and Virginia) from 2017 to 2023.
Half had “very good” absentee rates under 4% in 2019. By 2023, only a third of students were still going to school as regularly. Two-thirds were not.
“A lot of students who used to miss no school are now missing a couple days,” said Ethan Hutt, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who noticed the same phenomenon in the North Carolina data that he studied. “That’s just become the norm.”
4. Many students say they skip because school is ‘boring.’
Researchers are interviewing students and families to try to understand why so many kids are skipping school.
Kevin Gee, a professor of education at UC Davis analyzed surveys of elementary, middle and high school students in Rhode Island from 2016 to 2024. He found that more students are reporting missing school for traditionally common reasons: not getting enough sleep and illness.
After the pandemic, parents are more likely to keep their kids home from school when they get sick, but that doesn’t explain why absenteeism is this high or why physically healthy kids are also missing so much school.
Gee found two notable post-pandemic differences among students in Rhode Island. Unfinished homework is less of a reason to skip school today than it used to be, while more elementary school students said they skipped school because “it’s boring.”
Researchers at the symposium debated what to do about school being boring. Some thought school lessons need to be more engaging for students who may have shorter attention spans. But others disagreed.
“I think it’s OK for school to be boring,” said Liz Cohen, a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. “We need to adjust expectations that school should be as exciting as ‘Dora the Explorer’ all the time.”
5. Mental health issues contribute to absenteeism.
Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, has also analyzed surveys and noticed a “strong connection” between mental health struggles and chronic absenteeism. It was unclear if the increase in mental illness was triggered or exacerbated by the pandemic, or if it reflects anxiety and depression issues that began before the pandemic.
He’s interviewing families and teenagers about why they’re absent, and he says he’s seeing high levels of “disengagement” and mental illness. Parents, he said, were often very concerned about their children’s mental health and well-being.
“A lot of these kids have really severe traumas,” he said. “Lots of very legitimate reasons for missing school. Really chronic disengagement. The school is not serving them well.”
6. Showing up has become optional.
Several researchers suggested that there have been profound cultural shifts in the importance of in-person anything.
Seth Gershenson, an economist and associate professor of public affairs at American University, suggested that in-person school may seem optional to students in the same way that going to the office feels optional for adults.
“Social norms about in-person attendance have changed, whether it’s meeting with the doctor or whatever,” said Gershenson. “We’re going to be absent now for reasons that would not have caused us to be absent in the past.”
At the same time, technology has made it easier for students to skip school and make up the work.
In Polikoff’s interviews, 39 of the 40 families said it was “easy” to make up for being absent.
“People like that everything is available online and convenient,” he said. “And also, there is absolutely no question in my mind that doing that — which is well-intentioned — makes it much easier for people to be absent.”
The numbers back that up. Gershenson calculated that before the pandemic, skipping 10 days of school caused a student to lose the equivalent of a month’s worth of learning. Now, the learning loss from this amount of absenteeism is about 10% less; instead of losing a month of school, it’s like losing 90% of a month.
Gershenson said that’s still big enough to matter.
And students haven’t felt the most severe consequence: failing. Indeed, even as absenteeism has surged, school grades and graduation rates have been rising. Many blame grade inflation and an effort to avoid a high school dropout epidemic.
7. Today’s absenteeism could mean labor force problems tomorrow.
Academic harm may not be the most significant consequence of today’s elevated levels of chronic absenteeism. Indeed, researchers calculated that returning to pre-pandemic levels of chronic absenteeism would erase only 7.5% of the nation’s pandemic learning losses. There are other more profound (and little understood) reasons why students are so far behind.
More importantly, the experience of attending school regularly doesn’t just improve academic performance, researchers say. It also sets up good habits for the future. “Employers value regular attendance,” said Gershenson.
Jill Barshay writes for the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.