Under progressive leadership, 66% of American schools now report that at least 30% of their student body is chronically absent from school
This is over twice as much as the 2017 school year
https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/us-facing-crisis-of-student-absenteeism-group-says-schools-class-teachers-kids-children-parents-families-learning-loss-education-math-reading-mental-health-youth-anxiety
Close to a third of U.S. students are chronically missing school, with around two-thirds of students suffering under the "peer effects" of absenteeism.

The nonprofit advocacy group Attendance Works analyzed new data from the U.S. Department of Education that shows 66% of students attend a school with high or extreme levels of chronic absenteeism.

The rate of chronic absenteeism has doubled since before the pandemic, up to 29.7% in 2022 from 16.2% in 2019.

Over 14 million students were chronically missing school in 2022, up from 8 million before the pandemic.

Attendance Works says this is a crisis that has spread to more schools across the country.

“When you have high levels of chronic absence, the impact of those absences affects everyone in the classroom and the teacher,” said Hedy Chang, the founder and executive director of Attendance Works.

She called the rate of absenteeism “staggering.”

The Department of Education shows math and reading scores dropped between 2019 and 2022, and its analysis points to a “clear association between increases in student absenteeism and declines in NAEP scores.”