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Education United States

Chronic Student Absenteeism Soars Across US (nytimes.com) 119

Posted by msmash from the absent-minded dept.
The US has seen a significant increase in student absenteeism since the pandemic closed schools four years ago, with an estimated 26% of public school students considered chronically absent in the last school year, up from 15% before the pandemic, according to data from 40 states and Washington, D.C. A report adds: The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race. For districts in wealthier areas, chronic absenteeism rates have about doubled, to 19 percent in the 2022-23 school year from 10 percent before the pandemic, a New York Times analysis of the data found. Poor communities, which started with elevated rates of student absenteeism, are facing an even bigger crisis: Around 32 percent of students in the poorest districts were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, up from 19 percent before the pandemic. Even districts that reopened quickly during the pandemic, in fall 2020, have seen vast increases.
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Chronic Student Absenteeism Soars Across US More

Chronic Student Absenteeism Soars Across US

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  • Get your dirty ass germ bags in school.

  • But Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FunOne ( 45947 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:35AM (#64353578)

    Sure the quality of the education has fallen, and theres always the chance my kid gets shot by either another kid or the campus cop, but why would parents not want their kids at school? Is it the exposure to illness? The absurd political nonsense around books and libraries? The inane approach to sexual education? Insipid alternative versions of hstory? Obviously parents want their kids to be hazed, bullied, and threatened by other kids and the faculty. They need their children to be handed pre-printed worksheets all day and ignored by a teacher on their phone.

    I just can't see why a parent would think that missing a day of school is acceptable.

    • Re:But Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HBI ( 10338492 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:58AM (#64353658)

      The implicit trade was that if you send your kids to school to get indoctrinated by the government, they'll be guaranteed a living.

      Evaluate that statement today. Then you will see why few care. It is symptomatic of general social breakdown. People lost the script.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by smugfunt ( 8972 )

        Upton Sinclair not Sinclair Lewis.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HBI ( 10338492 )

          I understand that implies socialism. I'm not very convinced it wasn't always there, at least for the last 90 years, post-New Deal.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by smugfunt ( 8972 )

            I just mean the quote in your sig is misattributed.

            The New Deal has been deliberately dismantled over the last 40 years. They call it Socialism, I would call it Social Democracy.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HBI ( 10338492 )

              You are correct, i'm wrong. Thank you.

              I submit the New Deal was dismantled as it was created, by court decisions when the political will was there for change. It was intended to be more all-encompassing. But then as now, fear was stoked. In that case, fear of communism. To his dying day, my grandfather had bad things to say about FDR, mostly revolving around that.

      • Evaluate that statement today. Then you will see why few care.

        *crunches numbers*. Yep turns out school dropouts, and kids with massive absenteeism still dominate the statistics of those likely to be jobless and dependent.

        For every Bill Gates drop out that made it, there are 100,000 drop outs hoping Bernie Sanders wins the next election so they have enough handouts to make it through to their next rent payment.

        But that said your very post raises an interesting point. It seems there are people (like you) who don't look at statistics holistically and actually believe tha

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HBI ( 10338492 )

          Even a high school education today entitles you to menial work. While you are busily insulting my point of view, i'll note that people forced into the hopper of college as prerequisite to some kind of better life have resulted in the reduction over the past 50 years of average IQ for graduates dropping from 120 to 100. Standards have been reduced, and expectations are reduced.

          Factory work was a useful substitute for the agricultural work of the past; it didn't require you to be a rocket scientist to work

          • Secure? You're not supposed to feel secure. That MA will weigh you down with enough debt that you have to work to your grave to pay it back.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HBI ( 10338492 )

              Well, inflation helps. That was the advice to my daughter. A student loan taken out today will inflate until it's within reach to pay off.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
                That only worked as long as wages kept pace with or outpaced inflation

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by HBI ( 10338492 )

                  Perhaps. I just have anecdotal experience with this. By the time I paid off my loans, they seemed insignificant.

    • Re:But Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:59AM (#64353662)

      but why would parents not want their kids at school?

      For two reasons. In the more affluent areas it's because of the liberal indoctrination of CRT and, to what you alluded to, teaching kids facts which collide with the parent's moronity over books. In the less affluent areas it's because the parents don't care.

      And no, I'm not really joking on either point.

      Hand Kristian Graebener = StoneToss

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        it's because of the liberal indoctrination of CRT

        So Fox News and friends are to blame for making up issues for parents to be afraid of?

      • In the more affluent areas it's because of the liberal indoctrination of CRT

        In affluent areas, parents who are truly worried about those sort of bogeymen issues send their kids to private school. Public school rich kids skip out on school because they're spoiled brats expecting to get a free ride in life from their parents.

      • I think it's fair to say wealthy parents can be just as apathetic about their children as poor parents; affluent and less affluent parents might ascribe to either reason. I think the only reason unique to the less affluent would be economic: they need their kids to bring in money and recent changes to child labor laws in many states have been accommodating this.

        Living in rural Wisconsin, I can tell you without a doubt that the less affluent are definitely triggered by fears of "liberal indoctrination of

    • Back in my day, 30+ years ago in the Philadelphia public schools, "gay" was a common schoolyard taunt, fist fights (among 5th graders and younger) were not common but not rare either. Older students would occasionally be caught with knives, after having used them. And anyone who spent more than a month or so in the school figurdd out pretty quick not to keep "valuables" like new pencils or empty notebooks anywhere other than under their direct control.

      Out in the suburbs in the late 90s and early 2000s, the

      • And quite frankly, given the quality of education in the US, sitting on the couch and watching porn is probably a pretty good replacement. At least they'll know what not to do if they don't want to get pregnant, since the schools won't tell them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        hold on pencils and empty nottbooks (Ie basic supplies for anu student no matter what level of education) where considered valuables, am I the only one that finds this somewhat odd, there could )or at least should) not be a secondary market for such things
    • I think it's mostly cultural, and the same thing we see in the workplace: Covid shattered the norms of getting up in the morning and going to where you do what you do, every day, at a certain time. You didn't decide whether to do it, you just did it.

      • So you want to say that people finally got their head out of their ass and realized that "hey... why the hell do I do that?" is a bad thing?

        • I didn't actually make a judgment on it. I think there are some advantages and some disadvantages.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        I don't understand why employers care where elopes to there work as long as its finished on time and of sufficient quality. There are of course exceptions where sensitive data is concerned an corporate it might find it easeer to secure a campus than sercuring a lot of devices in peoples homes, but hey VDI has been a thing for a long while and while not being a fix for every security problem it certainly keeps all the data (ignoring keyloggers and screen scrapers on the employees pc for a second) it certai

    • I just can't see why a parent would think that missing a day of school is acceptable.

      Because COVID taught them that

      A) their kids can learn anywhere, anytime, with a variety of methods
      B) they saw just how much of their kids school days had been taken up by crap that had nothing to do with academics
      C) it's not necessary to be stuck in a concrete box 9 hours a day to learn, or even study 5 days every week to learn

      Most of us are beginning to see what the late Michel Foucaultt meant when he said that "schools resemble prisons because they serve a similar function".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by linuxguy ( 98493 )

      I have a teenage son who I would say is chronically absent from school. Despite my best efforts to get him to go. I care less about the issues in schools you identified. I am not looking for ideal school situation. I didn't go to one. We can always work to improve things. But keeping our kids from going to school is worse.

    • I went to school back in the days of leaded gas. Precisely zero of that shit happened back then. I attribute it to societal breakdown due to economic pressures (american businessmen offshoring as much as possible, and automating the rest), effectively ending traditional stay-at-home parenting.
      And also due to social pressures, (media constantly trolling for clicks with flame headlines and "analysis") combined with political extremists shouting over everyone all the time. It's the "false dichotomy" thinking t

    • I just can't see why a parent would think that missing a day of school is acceptable.

      They don't think missing a day of school is acceptable. Let me tell you from experience: The parents are completely used up trying to keep a roof over the kids head and putting food on the table. The kid accepts that they don't matter, which is evidenced by the amount of time the parents spend with the child. So the kid doesn't care about school. Go to school for what? So they can get a minimum wage part time job and become their parents? You are not getting that prestigious law partner offer no matter how

  • Students know studies are useless (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:37AM (#64353586)

    The social elevator has stopped decades ago. You can do your very best at school, then in college to get a good degree, yet it all but guarantees that your fancy diploma will land you a job other than flipping burgers at McD.

    Add to that AI, which is poised to make a lot of jobs students are studying for today obsolete, and you have a generation or two who just don't give a shit anymore.

    I know that because my neighbor's teens also skip school all the time, and when their parents confronted them, they literally said "Why bother..." And the sad thing is, all their parents could say was "You still have a better chance at a better life with an education", which isn't exactly a great motivator.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      A better motivator, at least for parents, is that your kids will NEVER leave the home if they don't find a way to fend for themselves. And if they turn to crime, you too will get caught in mess.

    • college degree can = working at starbucks vs McD.

      and you may be better of working at McD with no loan vs starbucks with an big loan to pay off.

    • Re:Students know studies are useless (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:49AM (#64353620)

      Oh please, that is "the sky is falling" bullshit. Education has always been the path to going forward. Yes, if you get a degree in art history you might struggle but I haven't seen anyone flipping burgers after college. Thinking AI is going to take over the world is like how the Segway was supposed to change the world.

      You're neighbor's teens are taking their cues from lazy minded parents who need to stop reading the doom and gloom news propaganda.

      • I realize this is an AC post, so you may not ever see it/or care, but a few decades ago, I knew an SGI engineer working at Blockbuster. When I asked him why, he said the market had been flooded when SGI went tits up, and the jobs at the time had hundreds of applicants (his ex-coworkers) he was competing with and working at Blockbuster was better than starving.
        Yes, yes, a data point of one, but college-educated folks working at dead-end retail jobs are not unknown...

        • I realize this is an AC post, so you may not ever see it/or care, but a few decades ago, I knew an SGI engineer working at Blockbuster. When I asked him why, he said the market had been flooded when SGI went tits up, and the jobs at the time had hundreds of applicants (his ex-coworkers) he was competing with and working at Blockbuster was better than starving.
          Yes, yes, a data point of one, but college-educated folks working at dead-end retail jobs are not unknown...

          I suspect your anecdote was unwilling to relocate. Indeed, work is preferable to starvation, and he may have had very good reason to stay in the same area... but it doesn't make a very interesting story.
          Shoot, in my area I can get $20/hr working fast food starting on Monday - if my wife and I could both get full time work we would do okay because we can live frugally. However, the work isn't inspiring.

        • I knew a woman who got a fancy degree with one of the Seven Sisters colleges...and ended up working as car mechanic at Sears. So...whilst car mechanic IS a skilled trade..Sears?

      • Thinking AI is going to take over the world is like how the Segway was supposed to change the world.

        +1 Insightful

      • I can see why you posted anonymously. You are blaming the lack of Social Mobility on the motivations of the people who could possibly be socially mobile. That is not a safe way to bet as social mobility motivates more than sex does. The lack of social mobility is purely a 'structural' issue, not a motivational issue.

        Now why would someone blame the wrong thing? Hm.

    • You can do your very best at school, then in college to get a good degree, yet it all but guarantees that your fancy diploma will land you a job other than flipping burgers at McD.

      Indeed. We all know the true answer to success is *checks notes*, dropping out completely because of a few examples of people who are unsuccessful. Wait what?

      Before you come up with a theory of why school sucks, come up with a theory of while the alternative is better. You can't explain human behaviour by only looking at one side.

    • I suppose I should point out that there is a difference between a fancy diploma and a fancy degree. The area you study matters. There's only so much room in a functional society for art history majors or whatever passes for a pointless degree nowadays.
  • Sounds like students are about as absent from school as employees are absent from work. Why learn social skills if you are not planning on using them at any point later in your life anyway? Since a majority (me not included) thinks that working together in on place is obsolete, it seems only plausible that students learn to not meet their peers in person from early on. Also solves the problem that other humans are increasingly only seen as risk to meet (for becoming infected, offended, violated, robbed etc.

    • Learning social skills? In school? Like what? How to dodge the bully so he beats up someone else? How to suck up to the teacher just enough that they pick on someone else but not enough to become the teacher's pet so the other students pick on you? How to avoid having your lunch thrown all over you by some idiot?

      If that kind of social skill is relevant to your job, get a new one. That's by the way the difference between school and a job: if they mob you at your job you can quit. As a student, you're stuck w

  • Parents have been pushing child rearing onto schools for a while now. I'd guess they expect the schools to do the heavy lifting of convincing the kids to come to school without the parents being involved but if they try to use any punishment as a stick the parents would go running to the press or a lawyer.

    People have become deluded with the idea that we can function normally without ever having in person interactions. Humans are social animals and need to be physically present around each other, not hidin

    • Humans are social animals, but I choose my social circles myself. They have very little in common with who I have to work with. And sure as FUCK they have little in common who I was forced to go to school with.

      At work, if I think the rest of the idiots there are just alive because they ain't worth the jail time I'd have to suffer if I end their existence, I can quit. At school, you can't even do that. So what "social" skill do you get at school? How to put up with insufferable idiots? I don't need that skil

    • People have become deluded with the idea that we can function normally without ever having in person interactions. Humans are social animals and need to be physically present around each other, not hiding behind a keyboard perpetually. I see some huge problems with depression and loneliness coming down the pike as these generations age.

      As someone who remembers going to school at age ten and thinking "Computers are all I'll ever need, screw relationships", you're dead on the money there. Personally, I wish I had spent more time with others. Decades later, and I have some pretty chronic loneliness and feelings of lack of accomplishment in life. I also have a nasty, hard-to-break tendency to ghost people on a regular basis (sometimes for years), and then act like no time has passed the next time I see them. I also have very little ability t

  • I've seen it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:53AM (#64353642)

    Thankfully not my kid, but I have two coworkers with kids who frequently either refuse to go to school or come home mid-day.

    From what I can tell 2nd-hand and with my Internet psychoanalysis degree, it seems to be due to the stress of socializing after being remote schooled during the pandemic. A nice calm year of never having to deal with other people you can't get away from, then suddenly they're back in it. I can see that causing an uptick in absenteeism. Hell, I'm a middle-aged man and I find myself noticeably less tolerant of annoying people now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      refuse to go to school or come home mid-day

      Offer them an alternative: Military academy.

      A nice calm year of never having to deal with other people you can't get away from

      Sadly, that's a skill which must be learned to get through life later on.

      • The option to just shoot the bastards that piss me off is certainly an alternative I wholeheartedly agree with.

    • Bringing out the grumpy old man here, but I"m pretty sure if I had told my Dad I'd be staying home from school for no reason, what would have followed would have been the task of moving a large pile of dirt around various portions of the backyard, until I finally decided to return to school.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by linuxguy ( 98493 )

      > Hell, I'm a middle-aged man and I find myself noticeably less tolerant of annoying people now.

      I am not sure if it is related to COVID or you're just about reaching that age where this sort of thing kicks in for most of us. And yes, I have reached this place as well.

    • Thankfully not my kid, but I have two coworkers with kids who frequently either refuse to go to school or come home mid-day.

      The lack of parental authority boggles the mind.

      Part of being a parent is teaching children to do what is necessary in life. That requires establishing the parent as the decision making authority, not leaving it to the child to determine what to do.

      Self-discipline is an important life skill. It is easier to learn self-discipline in an environment of parental discipline.

      The parents have failed to parent. We as a society are far to forgiving of failures in parenting.

  • In the 90's we blamed absenteeism on the chronic.

    Fun fact, Snoop Dogg thought someone called some bug "hydrochronic" not hydroponic, and almost immediately he shortened it to 'chronic.

  • Chronic was on the rise before the pandemic hit. So were student discipline issues. COVID just poured gasoline over that tire fire.

    I blame the smartphones.

    But it's more than just that. Our culture was brewing this disaster long before it happened. I grew up in the 80's and 90's, where I was taught that I should be an upstanding member of society, because society will reward me with a good job, a good house, a good family, and a good retirement. And because I'm American, "Freedom!" was the icing on the

  • Covid (Score:2, Troll)

    by skinfaxi ( 212627 )

    Covid causes damage to the brain, heart, lungs, circulatory system, etc., etc. It damages the immune system and makes other illnesses more severe. We're doing nothing to mitigate any of it - not installing better air filters in classrooms or requiring masks or encouraging sick people to stay home.

    Instead we're forcing kids and teachers into catching Covid, flu, RSV, measles, etc., over and over again. No wonder kids' health is crumbling. It's hard to do schoolwork when your body and brain is constantly und

  • Pandemic showed that you don't really need to go to school. Many made note of that.

    • Pandemic showed that you don't really need to go to school. Many made note of that.

      Since I work in education, I can confidently say that your statement is true... *if* you want to risk failing for the rest of life.

  • Where are ... (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @01:20PM (#64353938)

    ... the truancy officers?

  • Fairly general phenomenon (Score:3)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @01:22PM (#64353950)

    Not just in the USA.

    The school lockdowns over Covid showed people at a visceral level that attending school wasn't necessary; not doing so had no obvious, visible, consequences. So a lot of children have concluded they don't need to bother, and lots of parents can't really argue the point against them. At a deeper level education is not valued.

    I'm convinced we should roll back the expectation that kids stay in school after 14; let those who want to leave and get a job, do so. Encourage them to get an apprenticeship into a serious trade if possible. And use the money released to repair and upgrade schools so that staying in IS attractive...

    • end student loans lack of bankruptcy and have more trades!

      if the schools and banks where on the hook for defaults then the costs will go down / schools will get better / schools may even speed up so people can get the work force faster with an job to pay back the loan.

      Not the system of go to school rack up an big bill and then get an job with little to no hope of paying back. Now if it become more easy for some one working an min wage job after school to just use bankruptcy to wipe it out then the schools a

      • The left would see this as depriving young people from hard backgrounds of the opportunity to better themselves.

        The right would be concerned that it would leave banks facing massive losses as lots of loans were defaulted on via bankruptcy

        The universities would realise that this would cause their gravy train to hit the buffers - and would start yelling about philistines destroying the culture of society

        So - no - it ain't going to happen. Who do you think runs the USA? The people?

    • The school lockdowns over Covid showed people at a visceral level that attending school wasn't necessary; not doing so had no obvious, visible, consequences.

      Those kids need to go back to school where they may learn that there's overwhelming evidence that not being at school, even if they were attending online classes, has really held back their education levels to statistically significant and readily measurable level.

      There are clear obvious and visible consequences. Literally every study across virtually every country in the world is noting the same results.

    • Education is valued.

      But what the hell does this have to do with schools? At best, our schools don't impede education more than they're required by law.

      • Education is valued in SOME cultures - but not in an awful lot of the subcultures of the USA today.

        • I put the blame for this mostly on what education is in the US: A tool to train you just enough to be useful for your masters while at the same time putting you in enough debt to be an indentured slave for the rest of your life.

          Can you understand why people don't consider that something valuable?

          • Clearly primary education: basic literacy and numeracy are of massive value. And they're free - apart from the opportunity cost to the family of the child not being there to be a slave.

            Secondary - junior high school and high school - have declining value for most of the population; good high schools will teach practical skills and prepare for employment. But that's relatively expensive, and academic subjects have higher kudos among educators, and so are taught, far too much, by default.

            But yeah - university

            • Basic literacy and numeracy are baseline for pretty much existing today. We're not even talking about getting a job, if you can't read, if you can't do basic math, you're effectively unable to function in our society. Sorry if I don't consider that more than a requirement for life. Not any kind of qualification.

              Our schools are a prime example of why management by numbers produces numbers instead of results. Instead of teaching our kids, what is required is that they pass tests. That is easiest accomplished

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      You can't just blame lockdowns.
      Here in Western Australia, my kids missed just one week in April 2020, and re-opened as normal in May after the 2-week easter vacation.
      So school as normal.
      I have no data for 2020, but in 2021 some schools (low socioeconomic) showed big increases in chronic absenteeism (attendance below 90%) already.
      Other schools did not show it until 2022, when Covid finally spread here, and kids were isolating at home because they were infected or exposed.

      Now some schools in poorer areas hav [myschool.edu.au]

      • There was already a lot of scepticism about the value of education out there, but suddenly education seemed less important, with the consequences we are seeing now. But thank you for a particularly interesting extra piece of data.

  • In our school district, kids are out because they have been sick more, to a previously unprecedented level. It's as if now that the masks are off again, all of the non-COVID bugs are having a heyday, making up for lost time. When we've taken our kids to the doctor's office, they corroborate what the school district has been saying about absenteeism: kids have been sick a lot recently, and it (mostly) isn't COVID. For our kids, it isn't even any of the usual suspects.

  • We elected one of the most selfish and disrespectful persons in the country as President of the United States. Many of the issues in this article come down to what is fundamentally selfish and disrespectful behavior. What do we expect? Children to not follow the lead of the President of the United States?
    • Really? Really? What President of the US isn't a narcissist? The only thing that comes close is GWB and his Iraq crap showed true insanity. The rest of them? I wouldn't want any of them living within 1000 miles of me, thanks.

  • School has become a sickness merry-go-round (Score:3)

    by neiras ( 723124 ) on Friday March 29, 2024 @02:56PM (#64354184)

    My kids and I have been sick so much this year. We had two more rounds of COVID across our family since September. Other families we know are seeing the same thing. Before the pandemic a few colds and MAYBE a stomach flu type thing were the norm in a school year.

    All I can take away from this is that the pandemic isn't over and being sick has made us more vulnerable. Not that anyone cares.

    • Likely an ultra processed food diet has made this far worse. Try eating food that is cooked from ingredients , not from stuff in boxes or bags. If you do this, why not try some good immune system probiotics?
  • I mean those seem crazy. When I was in school, they called the police if you didn't have an excuse and went above 10 days absences - and the police had truancy officers who dealt with things from there up arresting/fining the parents. My kid's schools basically don't have absences, kids in Japan straight up go to school sick. There was a big deal when absent students hit 3% who had been absent and that was during COVID.
  • My wife grew up in a middle class suburb of Vancouver BC. Both of her parents had non specialized middle class jobs, low level management. They lived a very comfortable life. But education was not a priority in that home at all, mostly because the parents grew up assuming that good middle class jobs would forever be available. My wife graduated from high school, but it was more of a rite of passage because schools had very low standards and just pushed kids through. She attended school because that's w
  • You used to at least know a High Schooler could do things like, show up, follow directions. Post covid a high school diploma means nothing. In our district you literally get a passing 'D' grade with 40% now (used to be 60% pre-covid). It used to be you miss more than 10 classes then you start to get detention and if you missed 1 class without a parents note, you got reported to your parents. These limits are non-existent. You used to get expelled from school for hitting someone as the aggressor. Now you ge
  • If the kids aren't going to school, what are they doing?

    Are the parents home-schooling and not bothering to inform the school?
    Are kids just playing computer games all day while their parents are at work?
    Has the family relocated and not filled in the paperwork?
    Have the kids found part-time work that conflicts with their school hours?

    Until you know the cause, proposing solutions is a waste of time.
  • Iâ(TM)m seeing a LOT of R vs D finger pointing, and what little is actually about truancy, as opposed to other culture war topics, still misses an obvious explanation

    I get at least one letter each year from my local school district over absenteeism for my kids. (Got this years first one just last week) It warns me about possibly being visited by a truancy officer if one of my kid misses too many more days.

    Iâ(TM)m not poor, discouraged by the quality of the local education, afraid of them bei

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