SCHOOLS ARE IN HOOKY HELL Individual states are also instituting tepid fixes. In Virginia, a state-level task force is trying to help pediatricians and school nurses educate parents about the importance of school attendance and when to keep students home if they are genuinely too sick to go to school.
American children are skipping school in staggering numbers.
It’s early September, and children should be back at school, right? Well, many aren’t. With data from 44 states and Washington, DC, the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) director of education policy, Nat Malkus, discloses that the chronic absenteeism rate—students missing more than 10% of school days each year—was an alarming 23.5% in 2024.