Chronic absences have long been cited as one of the most severe and lasting effects of school closures during the Covid era. New research shows the problem is stuck with a group of students who are already facing significant disadvantages.
“The income gap was truly a major driver that has really appeared again and again,” Professor Morgan Polikoff, professor of education at the University of Southern California (USC), said in a presentation of his research at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event last week. “The fact that student-level income here is the main driver seems really important.”
Chronic Absenteeism – There was a Skyrocket during the pandemic, where students are often defined as when they missed more than 10% of the academic year. According to AEI Absentee Trackers, by 2022, the number of chronic absentees in the nation had increased by 89% compared to three years ago. Absenteeism has declined from its 2022 peak in most states reporting such data, but the 2024 figures show that it remains higher than pre-pandemic levels. The absolute rate of absenteeism differed greatly from state to state. In Alabama, students peaked at 18% in 2022 and fell to 15% in 2024. In contrast, almost half of Washington, DC students were chronically present in 2022, and still fell to 40% in 2024.
Polikoff research shows that low-income students, especially those with lower income, face a sustained increase in absenteeism compared to pre-pandemic numbers. Polikov looked at absenteeism data for schools in North Carolina and Virginia. He explained that when comparing absences from the start of the pandemic, the attendance gap between low-income and non-low-income students has grown dramatically. Low-income students in Virginia were post-pandemie students and were more likely to be chronically absent than others, with 14.4 points in North Carolina that these students were chronically absent.
Polikoff noted that the gap between the various racial groups is relatively minor after controlling for income. “Absolutely, the most disadvantaged groups are likely to have typically seen a significant increase in chronic absence,” he said. “The racial gap is not overly large, controlling for income and other things.
How exactly to reverse these trends has long been baffling education experts. The school district has tried everything from home visits to free ice cream and gift cards, but the issues still persist.
“(The absence) is what COVID did,” the 21-year-old told PropoPublica reporter Alec McGillis in a story co-published with the New Yorker last year. “They send their kids back to school, but they don’t want to do anything more. They want to stay home and play on the computer.”
