Chronic absenteeism is sounding alarm bells, but parents don’t hear them

Experts are sounding the alarm on chronic absenteeism and the serious obstacles it represents for U.S. students, but not only do most parents not consider it a high priority, they struggle to specify what it really means.

An NPR/Ipsos poll released this week showed only a third of parents can correctly define chronic absenteeism as missing at least 10 percent of school days — working out to around two a month — and when asked if it is a “major concern” for students, it ranked below most other issues in education such as gun violence, restrictions on teaching certain topics and teacher salaries.  

Advocates say the culture around absences in school has changed and officials have not adequately articulated to parents the dire consequences of what it means to miss class, outside of punitive measures for the family.  

“I think fundamentally that this is a major communications problem that schools are not really telling parents what it is to be chronically absent. They don’t really define it well, and frankly, they don’t talk to us about it until there is a major problem in their eyes, so I think that parents are getting a lot of conflicting information” said Keri Rodrigues, the president of National Parents Union. 

While it is too early for data on the 2023-2024 school year, the Return 2 Learn Tracker from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) showed chronic absenteeism jumped from 15 percent in 2018, before the pandemic, to 29 percent in 2022.  

The Economic Council of Advisors found chronic absenteeism is responsible for up to 27 percent of the declines in math scores post-pandemic and 45 percent of declines in reading.

From the 2021-2022 school year to 2022-2023, there were mixed signs of both improvement and decline in chronic absenteeism across the country, according to a collaborative report from student success organizations. Only two states, North Carolina and Michigan, saw substantial improvements in that time frame.  

“I’m not really that shocked about it,” said Nat Malkus, senior fellow and deputy director of the Education Policy Studies at AEI, when asked about parents struggling to define chronic absenteeism.  

“I think the public should understand what’s happening with attendance, but whether they actually know what chronic absenteeism is, I don’t think it’s actually that important,” Malkus said. “I do think it’s important that parents understand that that their kids showing up regularly to school is a big deal, and that that’s going to continue to be a big deal.” 

Chronic absenteeism is a relatively new term in education and has only been tracked since right before the pandemic began, but it has quickly gained the attention of top officials due to the ramifications it has on schools and students.  

At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, the National Assessment of Education Progress found a four point decline in reading and nine point decline in math test scores for students, compared to scores before the pandemic.

The White House hosted a summit last month focused on chronic absenteeism where the Biden administration announced measures it would be taking to combat the issue such as creating federal grant programs, providing new resources on effective strategies to lower student absences and addressing transportation issues that can affect attendance.  

Hedy Chang, founder and executive director of Attendance Works, said the latest numbers indicates chronic absenteeism is slowly declining, but still well above what it was before the pandemic.  

“When I go to the schools that have really reduced chronic absenteeism, it’s because they’ve really invested in parent engagement and youth engagement,” Chang said. 

Chang emphasized that environment should be created where “if you didn’t show up to school, this is what you’ve missed. If you didn’t show up to school, we missed you and your presence and you lost out in this opportunity for connecting in the classroom.” 

“So it’s that we have to deepen our immediate engagement with kids and families, deepen our relationship building, deepen our connectedness, and make sure that kids and families know that when they’re not in school, they were missed and when they’re not in school, this is what they missed out in terms of opportunities for learning and opportunities for connecting with other kids and adults,” she said.  

The NPR poll shows when it comes to parents’ concerns on education, most put chronic absenteeism at the bottom of the list: Only 5 percent see it as a major concern. Making sure young people are prepared for the future comes in first at 40 percent, bullying at 39 percent and gun violence at 31 percent.  

Mental health sits at 29 percent, sensitive topics in the classroom get 28 percent and learning loss from the pandemic draws 14 percent.  

“I think it’s important to note that on that list are some very basic things that would be incredibly hard for parents to put behind absenteeism, like my children are not being bullied and so forth,” Malkus said.  

And addressing those other issues is also key to getting students in the classrooms, experts say.  

“I think that what [schools are] missing is having that communication with parents and saying why it’s important that your child be in school every single day. This is what they’re missing. This is what they’re at risk of missing,” Rodrigues said.  

“Parents actually report that they’re concerned about whether or not their child is safe, whether they’re mentally safe, whether or not they are being bullied at school, being a major issue,” she added. “I think it’s really a question of schools doing a better job of being in communication with parents letting them know that it is important to show up at school every single day and wanting to create that FOMO culture in the building that fear of missing out so that kids want to be there.”