Believe it or not, the 2024–25 school year will begin in some parts of the country in less than a month, and students will return to school. Whether they return to school consistently is the most important question at the opening of this school year. Whether schools, districts, and states make chronic absenteeism their top priority this year, and whether they maintain that priority over time, may prove to be the most important education policy decision for the coming decade.

A student is chronically absent if he misses 10 percent or more of the school year—nearly a month of school. This was a problem before the pandemic, when about 15 percent of students were chronically absent. Chronic absenteeism harms the students who have excessive absences, but in high concentrations, it becomes a challenge for everyone because it forces additional work on teachers to accommodate so many absences and can slow the pace of instruction for consistently attending peers.

During the pandemic, chronic absenteeism surged to include 28 percent of all K–12 students. The latest available data, from 2023, show that more than one in four students were still chronically absent, making it clear that this problem will not go away on its own. Worse still, districts and schools face stubborn pandemic learning loss, and as long as chronic absenteeism persists, it will hamper crucial learning recovery.

Turning the tide of chronic absenteeism is critical this school year because there is a real 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, president and founder of Attendance Works, in a public event at AEI this Wednesday, July 17, to call on states and school districts to make fighting chronic absenteeism their number one priority for the 2024–25 school year. Not only that, we will call for school leaders to commit to an ambitious, but achievable, goal: Cut chronic absenteeism by 50 percent over five years, from the pandemic peak in 2022.

Chronic absenteeism won’t go away on its own. However, there is hope that states and districts can turn this trend around if, together with families, they take bold and thoughtful action to change attendance behaviors that became common during the pandemic. At Wednesday’s event at AEI, we will have state and district leaders, including Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons, Rhode Island’s Commission of Elementary and Secondary Education Angélica Infante-Green, and Topeka Public Schools’ Superintendent Tiffany Anderson, make the case by discussing the actions they have taken, and will continue to take, to make these goals a reality.

Making chronic absenteeism the top priority for this school year is an essential first step, but setting long term goals is also key to sustaining this work over several years and to holding systems accountable. Join us on Wednesday to hear the case for why this fight, and the adoption of clear goals, is a reasonable, and even critical, step for this school year and the school years to come.