What Rising Absenteeism Reveals About Public Education

Rising absenteeism is often framed as a student or family failure, but it actually reveals something deeper about the state of public education. When large numbers of students stop showing up, it’s a signal that schools may feel impersonal, overly rigid, or disconnected from students’ real lives. Years of policies that prioritize testing, efficiency, and compliance over relationships and creativity have left many students feeling unseen and unmotivated, especially in communities already facing economic and social stress.

What absenteeism exposes is not a lack of caring from students, but a lack of investment in the conditions that make school feel worth attending. Schools that are safe, well-staffed, and rooted in their communities, consistently keep students engaged. Schools offering counseling, arts, extracurriculars, and smaller class sizes help students feel like they have a place where they belong. If policymakers want to address absenteeism, they need to stop treating it as a behavioral problem and start treating it as a warning sign. Public education doesn’t need more punishment or privatization; it needs to be rebuilt as a place of belonging, care, and opportunity.

Ending High Truancy Rates: How to Get Students to School

By Nancy Bailey| August 10th, 2025 | Network for Public Education