CDC and the Department of Education Must Work Together to Address Chronic Absenteeism
Federal agencies need to collaborate more often to solve pressing problems.
One of the biggest social policy crises in the United States right now is chronic absenteeism at public schools.
Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school.
All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. Taken together, the data from 40 states and Washington, D.C., provides the most comprehensive accounting of absenteeism nationwide. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students, according to Dee’s analysis.
A significant driver of chronic absenteeism is parents complying with outdated Covid-19 protocols, such as isolation following asymptomatic positive tests and staying home with light respiratory symptoms. (It’s worth noting that some European countries never discouraged children with light symptoms from attending school.) According to Los Angeles’ superintendent, staying home with the sniffles has led to some children missing weeks or months of school.
“I met students who were out 72 days, 40 days, 50 days, 27 days – and when you ask the parents or the students the reasons, one of the reasons that was conveyed to us was that ‘my [child] had the sniffles, and therefore I didn’t think I could send them to school,’” says Carvalho.
Last year, 40% of students in LAUSD were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school days. The previous school year, “chronic absenteeism was at an all time high of 50%,” Carvalho says.
“Educationally speaking, this is a crisis,” he adds.
While there is an argument to be made that Covid-19 isolation and testing guidance should be revisited for everyone, it’s undoubtedly true that locking children out of classrooms — following years of disrupted schooling — for asymptomatic positive tests and stuffy noses no longer makes sense, because the harms clearly exceed the benefits.
Given this reality, I want to submit that Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and CDC Director Mandy Cohen should collaborate to ensure U.S. students are no longer missing valuable classroom time due to unnecessary Covid-19 measures. As an urgent matter, a small team of Department of Education and CDC employees should get together and draft more sensible guidance for schools, which acknowledges: the endemicity of SARS-CoV-2; the fact most children have already been infected, vaccinated, or both; and highlights the importance of consistent school attendance for public health and child well-being.
Together, Cardona and Cohen should deliver new guidance with the following points from the White House briefing room and encourage school districts to adopt it:
Children with light respiratory symptoms should attend school
It is unnecessary for healthy children to test after exposure to Covid-19 or with respiratory symptoms, but children who test positive for Covid-19 without symptoms or light respiratory symptoms can still attend school while exercising basic respiratory precautions
Children who are feverish or generally unwell should stay home from school until no longer feverish and feeling better
(I am obviously not a doctor or public health scientist, but I am familiar with Covid-19 school policies across Europe and they are generally similar to the aforementioned points. The Los Angeles Unified School District is also now encouraging children to attend school with light respiratory symptoms.)
Chronic absenteeism in U.S. public schools is a social policy crisis that requires input from both CDC — whose pandemic-era guidance is responsible for some of the problem — and the education department, given schools have to announce new recommendations and encourage parents and children to change their behaviors. Addressing this problem with input from both agencies will help to earn the trust of citizens. The effort would also be a model for improved federal governance where agencies are empowered to work together solve problems rather than be micromanaged from the executive branch.
