California’s public schools have a numbers problem —and it’s not just that their students don’t score very highly in national tests of mathematics ability.
Their other numbers problem is the financial squeeze posed by declining enrollment, especially in large urban districts, compounded by apparently growing levels of chronic absenteeism, or truancy.
“Thirty percent of California public school students were chronically absent from school in 2021-22 — a near tripling of the percentage in 2018-19,” the Public Policy Institute of California declared in a recent report. “Although we do not know if this stark increase in chronic absenteeism, defined as missing at least 10% of the school year or at least 18 days, will continue, the data from last year raises concerns about the pace of students’ learning recovery after the educational setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
California is one of just seven states that base state financial support of local school systems on attendance, rather than enrollment, so the declines in enrollment and attendance comprise a double financial whammy, one of the reasons many school districts are facing budget deficits.