Recent articles have highlighted what educators across the nation are noticing – absenteeism among school-aged children is at a record high. Even disaggregated across cultural and socioeconomic differences, the increases in absenteeism are astounding. The New York Times put together a comprehensive report about the rise in absenteeism since the pandemic noting such causes as heightened anxiety and mental health concerns, transportation concerns when students miss the bus and parents are working or unable to get their children to school, and without editorial, citing the increase in illness-related absences (even common colds) that students used to go to school with. 

The reality of all of these issues is that this outcome is a result of a still-faulty system setting up students for a reality that is not there. School systems, for the most part, are still functioning within antiquated systems that are not “preparation” for any type of job or future education. Now, remember that we are talking systems, not the content of education itself (reading, writing & arithmetic). 

180 days is not a year. Not only do school calendars operate on a truncated calendar (based on kids needing to be home to help ‘tend to the farm’ in the summer) that does not mimic reality, but it capitalizes on this 180 days to pay teachers less, because then contracts can be considered only 10 months instead of a more realistic 12-month approach.

6-7.5 hours is not a day’s work. We have moved past the agrarian calendar and into the mill mentality where we need to put in 8 hours a day in order to be considered productive. It is a rare human who can acquire forced knowledge (read: only the tested stuff) for a solid 8 hours, let alone a 5 year old or even an angsty teen. No research demonstrates that there is a “magic number” of hours needed for learning. There are a few studies out there that look at extended day – see this one from the NEA, but what’s noted is that these extended days allowed for stuff that used to fit in the regular school day – like recess, social time, arts and music. Let’s add to that, that there is research around attention spans of kids and the more traditional rule of thumb that was: age of student = minutes of attention span has been crushed over the past 10 years. 

Online learning just isn’t ideal for the masses. There really is no supporting research showing that technology makes learning “better.” Even in this NIH study, the impact of tech in the classroom is so minimal that it can’t really be concluded as an effective measure for increasing learning, so why do we think that doing it all online will work? We currently only hold schools accountable for their work on reading, writing, math and science. That has led to a decrease in focus on those other life skills that are absolutely essential to functioning as a human on this earth – communicating, speaking, listening, reading body language, cooperating with others, teamwork, and skills of the like. And, lo and behold, behavior incidents are up too.

Learning loss only applies to those standardized and measured metrics. I’m so tired of this argument about learning loss. Kids learn something every day. Day-in and day-out. So do you and I. It might not be what you want them to learn, but they certainly learn – all. day. long.

The United States had a nice opportunity to reset education after the pandemic and evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t done. If there is something to be done about these attendance and behavior concerns, we need to move in a direction that is both research- and future-based. 

Year-round school … with year-round funding. Let’s start looking at 225-day school years that more align to work schedules (260 work days – 20 vacation – 15 sick). That also means there needs to be a huge bump in teacher pay (as there should have been a while ago). 

4-hour school days. I know, I know. A full-time work day is like 8ish hours. But what we know about learning is that we all need time to digest and apply what we’ve learned on our own. And the reality is, with the technology we have, we should be more efficient during the day. All of our jobs should be more efficient and allow us to work less during the day. Other resolutions within this – we will have two meals served at school (and paid for! We’ve already proven we can do it, and then took it away!); we can still provide after/before school care if needed. Other, way happier and healthier countries do this. We can make it work. 

Start measuring other stuff if you want to know how the kids are doing. We aren’t even close to asking the right questions about our students, schools, teachers and education system. What have the students been learning? What are they really good at now? Are the funds matching the goals? It doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t be looking at the basics, but let’s start looking at a whole lot more than that. 

And what does this all have to do with attendance? If we can get ourselves out of this vicious cycle of false measurements and stress-induced learning environments not based on research, maybe, just maybe, we can convince and demonstrate to parents, guardians, politicians, and most importantly, our students, that school is worthwhile and honors their knowledge and backgrounds as much as where we want them to be able to go afterward.

This list is in no way exhaustive. It’s a start. It’s something. This conversation has to start somewhere, because just calling out bad attendance solves absolutely zero of the real, underlying and systemic issues that are causing these changes in schools.