Why School Absences Have "Exploded" Across America

Plain English with Derek Thompson

The Ringer

News Commentary, News

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The other day, I read a statistic about my hometown of Washington D.C. that knocked my socks off. In D.C. high schools, 60 percent of students were chronically absent in the last school year. That means they missed one day of school every two weeks. Among ninth graders, it’s even worse: One-third of D.C. freshmen were absent for the equivalent of six weeks of school. The New York Times reported that, nationwide, one quarter of public school students are now chronically absent. That figure has practically doubled since before the pandemic. And it’s doubled across all sorts of districts—rich and poor, liberal and conservative. Today’s guest is Nat Malkus, a former teacher who is the deputy director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. We talk about why school absences have exploded across the country; why some people think this just doesn’t matter; why we think it might matter quite a bit; and what teachers, parents, and lawmakers should do about it. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Nat Malkus Producer: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever wondered about the meaning behind your favorite song lyric or why certain melodies make your skin tingle?
0:05.6	I'm Cole Kushna and these are the kinds of questions I try to answer on Dissect, a podcast that dives deep into one album per season
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0:21.5	Our latest season just launched all about M.F. Doom's mad villainy.
0:25.2	Listen to dissect wherever you get your podcast,
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0:31.6	The other day I read a statistic about my hometown of Washington DC that knocked my socks off.
0:37.0	In DC high schools this year, 60% of students were chronically absent. That means they
0:46.5	missed one day of school every two weeks. Among ninth graders it's even worse.
0:51.9	One third of DC ninth graders it's even worse. One third of D.C. 9th graders were absent for the equivalent of six full weeks of school in one school year.
1:00.0	Many listeners have probably heard about the so-called learning loss problem in American education.
1:06.2	The idea that the pandemic set back student progress in math and reading by two decades and
1:11.2	widen the achievement gap between poor and rich students.
1:14.0	That's been widely reported.
1:15.8	A lot of listeners might also have heard about the surge in disruptive behavior in schools.
1:20.4	There's been a surge in disruptive behavior just about everywhere by the way.
1:23.0	But what they might not know about, or at least what I didn't know nearly enough about until this week,
1:28.0	is that these crises of learning and behavior are nested within a much more basic and in many ways
1:34.8	much more fundamental problem. Many students just aren't going to school
1:40.9	anymore or at least not nearly at the rate if they did, before the pandemic.
1:47.2	Nationwide, one quarter of public school students are now chronically absent.
	...

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