Why are students still so behind post-COVID? Their school attendance remains abysmal

As schools and parents contend with uncomfortable and increasingly unavoidable truths about persistent learning loss, new data out Thursday points to a key source of the problem: Scores of students have in recent years missed so much school that catching up seems nearly impossible.

The U.S. Education Department data, analyzed by Attendance Works and Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center, shows that in the 2021-22 school year, 2 in 3 students attended schools with high or extreme levels of chronic absence. Chronic absence typically refers to missing at least 10% of the school year, and the analysis considers a school’s levels to be high or extreme if at least a fifth of its students are chronically absent.

Overall, roughly 30% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 year. It was an era still reeling from the devastation of COVID-19 – quarantines were frequent, health needs were vast and hardship was widespread.

Going to school was hard during COVID. Why aren’t kids (or teachers) returning to class?

Attendance challenges persist

But as in-depth reporting by USA TODAY revealed earlier this year, attendance challenges persisted into the subsequent school year – the one that was, at long last, supposed to feel normal. A separate recent analysis by Attendance Works of 11 states’ data found only a slight decline in chronic absence from 2021-22 to 2022-23. Last school year, 28% of those state’s students were chronically absent, down from 30% the year prior.

“An unprecedented wave of chronic absenteeism has spread across the country,” the analysis notes. “Not only is teaching and learning more challenging when large numbers of students are frequently missing class, such elevated levels of chronic absence can easily overwhelm a school’s capacity to respond.”

Kids who are chronically absent have lower odds of graduating and, especially when they miss school in the early grades, of learning how to read. And while chronic absence generally is more common at the high school level, the latest report shows the increases were especially pronounced at elementary schools.

The rate jumped from 7% in 2017-18 to 38% in 2021-22. In fact, the number of elementary schools with extreme levels of chronic absence – more than 30% of kids missing 10% of the year – far exceeded that of high schools.

Which kids missed class during COVID? We asked, and shools don’t know.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why are kids still behind in school? Their attendance remains abysmal