In large part because kids across America learned remotely for too long, the pandemic was a time of epic learning loss from which kids still haven’t recovered.

Now that COVID is long over, the problem of missing classes remains. A new report from the Manhattan Institute, penned by Danyela Souza Egorov, points out that the public school system’s chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% or more of all days throughout the 180-day school year — which was 25% before the pandemic, and rose to 40% during the lockdowns — hit 35% during the 2023-24 school year. That’s objectively way too high, and higher than the nationwide rate.