TY  - RPRT
TI  - The Post-Pandemic “Attendance Crisis” in Historical Perspective
AU  - Singer, Jeremy
PY  - 2026
T3  - EdWorkingPaper
M1  - 26-1574
PB  - Annenberg Institute at Brown University
DO  - 10.26300/qrp6-m331
UR  - https://edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1574
AB  - School attendance rates in the United States are lower now than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This rise in absenteeism has often been characterized as a crisis; but whether it amounts to a broader breakdown in norms depends on the historical baseline against which it is judged. The recent decline in attendance rates represents a small setback within a much longer trajectory of increasing school participation. This perspective helps distinguish a modest national shift in attendance from the deeper and more concentrated barriers to improving attendance that long predate the pandemic.
ER  -