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June 12, 2025
Lingering Absence in Public Schools: Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2024
Key Points Chronic absenteeism spiked during the pandemic and remains a serious problem. In 2024, rates were 57 percent higher than they were pre-pandemic and only 2 percentage points lower…
May 15, 2025
The Pandemic Is Over. It’s Time for Schools to Get the Message.
More than five years after the covid-19 pandemic began, the havoc it wreaked on American students and schools is alarmingly clear by nearly every measure. But there is one glaring…
May 14, 2025
Graduation in the Time of COVID: The Weakened Relationship with Chronic Absenteeism
…weakened by about half during the pandemic. More likely a side effect of pandemic-era changes than a deliberate policy choice, the national graduation rate might have been three points lower—amounting…
January 24, 2025
Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends
…of the children we care for, or the future of the economy we depend on, national test scores are valuable indicators. However, although national test scores do provide strong evidence…
January 24, 2025
Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends
…of the children we care for, or the future of the economy we depend on, national test scores are valuable indicators. However, although national test scores do provide strong evidence…
December 11, 2024
US Students Best Other Nations—in Achievement Gap Growth
…other nationally representative assessments. What I want to look at today is whether these trends parallel what is happening in other countries. TIMSS is taken by hundreds of thousands of…
December 9, 2024
TIMSS Shows the Bottom Is Falling Out for US Test Scores
Last week’s release of 2023 scores from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)—an international assessment measuring fourth and eighth graders in math and science—offers a fresh look at…
September 6, 2024
The Latest Chronic Absenteeism Numbers
…much into them. More telling will be the national average 2023–24 school year. Some researchers have provided estimates of the 2023–24 national average, but it is hard to predict just…
July 17, 2024
Coming Together on Chronic Absenteeism: Schools’ Top Priority This Year
…Opening Remarks: Nat Malkus, Deputy Director, Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute 4:05 p.m. Panel I Panelists: Hedy Chang, Founder, Attendance Works Denise Forte, President, Education Trust Moderator: Nat Malkus,…
July 15, 2024
It Is Time to Set Goals for Cutting Chronic Absenteeism
…threat that elevated chronic absenteeism becomes a new normal in the nation’s schools. That’s why I am coming together with Denise Forte, CEO of the Education Trust, and Hedy Chang,…