Why students miss school: They don't think it matters
- Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 21
- 1 min read
Pittsburgh will close public schools for three days in late April because the NFL draft is coming to town, potentially causing traffic problems. Students will be "learning at home," which means that most will not be learning.
Only one of the district's 54 schools is in the city core, close to the event, writes Salena Zito in the Washington Examiner.
One-third of Pittsburgh's public school students are chronic absentees.
The implicit message of the three-day closure -- if getting to school is a hassle, then stay home -- will not help the district's campaign to improve attendance.
Nationwide, the key drivers of the absenteeism crisis are disengagement and the belief that in-person schooling doesn't matter, write Amie Rapaport, Morgan Polikoff, and Anna Saavedra.
They asked parents and teenagers the reason for each absence. Illness wasn't a major factor. "Taking care of family members, students 'just not wanting to go,' suspensions, mental health, and transportation barriers account for many missed days," they found. Here's the full report on their Understanding America Study.
Not surprisingly, teenagers who care "a lot" about how they do in school show up a lot more than those who care less. Students with A/B grades miss 10 fewer days than those with lower grades.
"Norms also matter," they write. "We asked parents how many days were acceptable for students to miss, and households with chronically absent teens report a much higher threshold —17 days —compared to an average of ten days in households where students are not chronically absent."
Maybe the issue is that community leaders and the people who support them see public school students as "others" and thus, not worth spending on, helping, or worth even sending a positive message.
Edu-medicators screwed up. When you are running a long con, you can't just shut it down and not expect your marks not to notice. Even parents noticed the high level of useless social justice content. Then kids were pushed to find learning on their own. The schools tried to seize that by "online classes" but the thing about kids they are as dumb as the adults think.
Schooling is about getting good grades, not real learning. Only for many, the magic parchment of k12, much less higher ed has lost its value since they are the "disfavored" in bureaucratic corporate and government America