Before the pandemic, in January 2019, our nation’s Department of Education published a report on what it called “a hidden educational crisis” — chronic absenteeism.

That report begins with this true statement: “​​Education can only fulfill its promise as the great equalizer — a force that can overcome differences in privilege and background — when we work to ensure that students are in school every day and receive the supports they need to learn and thrive.”

The irony highlighted in that report is that the students most in need of the equity provided by public education were often the most likely to be absent — because of poverty, community violence, difficulties at home, or health problems.

Public education in the United States has not only been the key to success for individuals; it has been the driving force of our success as a nation. A well-educated workforce is essential to a sustainable economy.

Our system of public schools produces not just workers to fuel our economy but scientists and inventors to bring us to new frontiers; poets and playwrights and artists to enhance our culture; teachers and leaders to better our world.

But, put simply: Students cannot learn if they are not in school.

The problem of chronic absenteeism was made worse by the pandemic. Declining test scores during and after the pandemic have been linked to the near doubling of absenteeism

The panacea of online teaching, which was essential to continue learning when schools in our state and others were closed to stem the spread of COVID-19, has had a lingering and worsening effect on absenteeism.

The problem is right here in our midst. We’re printing Sean Mulkerrin’s story on chronic absenteeism in our local school districts — from suburban Guilderland and Voorheesville to rural Berne-Knox-Westerlo — on our front page this week.

The community and the parents of children in our schools need to acknowledge this problem as well as the educators who are already grappling with it.

It is hidden no more.

During the 2018-19 school year, the Voorheesville Central School District’s chronic absenteeism rate was about 5 percent; it then spiked to nearly 14 percent during the 2021-22 school year, before beginning to subside the following year, down to about 12.5 percent.

In Guilderland, the 2018-19 chronic absenteeism rate was about 8 percent. It then hit over 20 percent during the 2021-22 school year, falling to approximately 16 percent in 2022-23.

At Berne-Knox-Westerlo, almost 11 percent of students were chronically absent during the 2018-19 school year, a figure that nearly hit 17 percent in 2021-22, before it fell back to pre-pandemic attendance, about 13 percent for the 2022-23 school year.

In the 2021-22 school year, about 30 percent of students nationwide were chronically absent according to the United States Education Department. That’s a huge jump from the 16 percent of chronic absenteeism in 2019, just before the pandemic, which in itself was considered an educational crisis.

Truancy, which tracks just unexcused absences, is different from chronic absenteeism, calculated as a student missing 10 percent or more of school days a year, or 18 days in a 180-day school year.

Research abounds on the negative effects of absenteeism. It starts early — more than 10 percent of kindergartners and first graders are chronically absent — but spikes in high school.

Students who are chronically absent in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are much less likely to read at grade level by third grade, which would make them four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers.

A student who is chronically absent any year between grades 8 and 12 is more than seven times more likely to drop out. On average, a college graduate is likely to live about nine years longer than someone who has not completed high school.

A National Center for Education Statistics report from January shows just 15 percent of school leaders overall are “extremely worried” about chronic absenteeism. Our school leaders need to acknowledge the seriousness of this problem and find ways to solve it.

Our local schools are already engaged in some initiatives that should help, starting with careful tracking of absences, providing transportation to homeless children who need it, providing meals to children who would otherwise go hungry, and providing counseling to students suffering from social or emotional problems.

But the solution has to be bigger than just what the schools can provide. Parents can play a critical role in substantially reducing absenteeism.

A report this past March from the Brookings Institution shows that less than half of caretakers with children at risk of being chronically absent report being concerned about it. Brookings found that one of the reasons caretakers weren’t concerned about absences is because of materials available online.

Less than a quarter of caretakers of children who had been chronically absent said it was mostly or very true that their child struggled to catch up after an absence.

The Brookings study found a third of caretakers aren’t worried about their child missing school because everything the child needs to know is available online while a third of parents whose children who were chronically absent believe it is all right for students to work from home if they want.

“We didn’t find any clear insight into why children are now missing considerably more school than they were pre-pandemic,” said the Brookings study, adding, “Individually, the reason with the strongest relationship with actual reported absences was a child’s anxiety about peers, tests, or in general.”

Other reasons, in descending order, were oversleeping, conflicts with job schedules, feeling it is easier to learn from home because of disabilities, and being bored or uninterested at school.

“If we are going to get children back in school, these results call out for intervention. Parents need very clear, direct reporting about how much school their children are missing, especially if their children’s absenteeism creeps up into chronic territory,” the Brookings report says.

“But,” the Brookings report concludes, “we also need deeper understanding of what is driving ongoing absence so we can work to reduce it. One factor may be the ready availability of online learning options for when children are absent. These resources are useful for expanding learning opportunities, but schools must impress upon parents that they are a supplement to, not a substitute for, in-person attendance.”

We wholeheartedly endorse the value of in-person learning. During a brief moment as the pandemic gripped New York state, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a committee to look at ways online learning — a necessity at the moment — might lead to improved schooling in the future.

To the contrary, online learning proved in many ways to be a poor substitute for in-person learning. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report makes this clear.

The pandemic, writes Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, “highlighted a deep-rooted tendency to see technological solutions as a universal tool, suitable for all situations, an inevitable form of progress.”

However, she distinguishes between the tool and the solution, the means and the end. On the promise of personalized learning, Azouly writes, “Very often, this powerful hope leads us to forget the fundamental social and human dimension that lies at the heart of education. It is worth reiterating the obvious: no screen can ever replace the humanity of a teacher.”

So far, the greatest indicator research has found for reducing absenteeism is strengthening the bond between schools and parents.

Karen L. Mapp, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Todd Rogers, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, working with The New Teacher Project and Learning Heroes, are in the midst of a three-phase study of 3,000 schools in Illinois, the state found to be the most representative of schools across the nation.

They found that schools with stronger family engagement had student attendance rates that were 25 percent better than schools without, regardless of poverty level, school size, or grade level. The researchers also found that the results were consistent regardless of how long schools were closed for in-person learning at the height of the pandemic.

Casting an even wider net, the National Conference of State Legislatures has considered research that found creating positive relationships among students, families, and schools helps to mitigate chronic absenteeism.

Different state legislatures, the conference reports, have taken different approaches — with Colorado adopting health screenings; Maine requiring attendance-review teams to provide outreach services when a specific percentage of students are chronically absent; and West Virginia allowing school districts to file a claim against a student’s legal guardian if a student has more than 10 unexcused absences.

We have taken a first step this week, informing our community about this important problem. While state legislation is warranted with some educational issues, we believe this chronic absenteeism is best solved on a local level.

We trust parents will now be aware of the important role they play in seeing that their children attend school.

We look forward in the months ahead to hearing from our school leaders and community members about the best way forward.

Our future depends on it.