America’s schools have made progress reducing chronic absenteeism since the pandemic. But the problem continues.
Across 44 states and the District of Columbia, the percentage of students missing at least 10 percent of school days fell from a 28 percent peak in 2021-22 to about 23 percent in 2024–25, according to Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute. That still means more than one in five students are chronically absent.
He also reports that 21 states releasing attendance data for the 2025–26 school year show improvement in combating the problem. In 16 of those states, the pace of improvement accelerated compared with the previous year.
