It’s early September, and children should be back at school, right?
Well, many aren’t. With data from 44 states and Washington, DC, the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) director of education policy, Nat Malkus, discloses that the chronic absenteeism rate—students missing more than 10% of school days each year—was an alarming 23.5% in 2024.
Malkus notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels, but the data does reveal significant differences by race and ethnicity, with 39% of Black students, 36% of Hispanic students, 24% of white students, and 15% of Asian students chronically absent.
Additionally, while students from both low- and high-income families often miss school, the highest rates occur in low-income districts, where 30% of students are chronically absent. Still, the rate has gone up even in low-poverty areas, increasing from about 10% to over 15%.
High-achieving districts have also been affected by the new normal. Over 15% of students in the top third at those schools are chronically absent, compared to 10% before the pandemic.
States vary significantly in the number of student absences. While Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia have a 15% rate, Alaska’s is 43%, Oregon’s is 34%, and Michigan’s is 30%.
The problem is particularly egregious in our big cities. According to a recent report, in Los Angeles, where over 32% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year, 34 elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of the building.
Even worse, in Chicago, the chronic absentee rate is 41%. The city’s dwindling enrollment has left about 150 schools half-empty, while 47 operate at less than one-third capacity. One Chicago high school had just 33 students last year.
No matter. The district’s spending of taxpayer dollars appears to be unaffected. On August 28, Chicago Public Schools approved a $10.2 billion budget, and at the same time, it is facing a $743 million deficit. Before the budget was approved, three major credit rating agencies each rated CPS General Obligation Bonds as “non-investment grade speculative,” also known as “junk bonds.”
What are education leaders doing to stem the tide of student flight?
Not much. The AEI report discloses that on the national level, only about a third of students attend districts aiming to cut absenteeism in half by 2027. Progress slowed in 2024 compared to 2023, “raising the very real possibility that absenteeism rates might never return to pre-pandemic levels.”
Individual states are also instituting tepid fixes. In Virginia, a state-level task force is trying to help pediatricians and school nurses educate parents about the importance of school attendance and when to keep students home if they are genuinely too sick to go to school.
Connecticut’s Learner, Engagement, and Attendance Program supports home visits to strengthen school-family connections and reduce barriers to school attendance for students.
In clueless California, Senate Bill 691 requires schools to revise their messaging to parents, replacing traditional truancy notices with ones that provide information about available resources, including mental health support.
Alicia Garoupa, the chief of well-being and support services at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic approach toward supporting students, “empowering youth leaders and helping students feel a sense of belonging on their campus.”
What should be done?
One realistic way to address chronic absenteeism would be to close ineffective schools. But the government educrats don’t like to do that. As a matter of fact, school closures have actually slowed over time.
An analysis by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics shows that in 2014-15, the closure rate—the share of schools nationwide that were open one year and closed the next—was 1.3%, but in 2023-24, the rate was just .8%.
Another thing that could help would be to winnow down the number of teachers by eliminating the poorest performers, but that is not happening. Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, writes that an analysis of student-teacher ratios nationwide between 2010 and 2022 shows that 2022 saw the lowest number of students per teacher. He found that the ratio fell from 16.4 to 15.4 in those 12 years. “There are many more teachers per student than ever before in U.S. history,” he said.
The situation could also improve if students saw a purpose in being at school. Currently, many kids lack interest in showing up. A 2024 report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed over 1,000 Gen Z students aged 12 to 18, finding that only 48% of those enrolled in middle or high school felt motivated to attend school. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice survey indicates that 64% of teens said school is boring, and 30% see it as a waste of time.
Similarly, if schools provided a product that parents valued, they would ensure their children attended. You don’t need to persuade parents that their child needs good food and proper clothing, and the same goes for education. On that note, a 2024 survey revealed that nearly 64% of school parents say K-12 education is headed in the wrong direction, up 8 points from 2023.
Ultimately, what we really need to do is adopt a business model for schools. If a business is losing customers, it tries to improve its product. At the same time, it could also lay off some of the least necessary workers. If neither of these helps, the business will shut down.
School choice would also encourage greater involvement from parents. In fact, private schools have seen consistent enrollment growth since the pandemic.
Additionally, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools reports that the charter school population increased by 83,000 students in 2023, making it the only type of public school to see consistent growth since the COVID-19 pandemic.
America’s kids and the future of our nation depend on a quick course correction. What we are doing now is definitely not working.
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views expressed here are entirely his own.