To Fight Absenteeism, Schools Turn to Private Companies

the pandemic's impact on our society has many tentacles that go beyond test scores, mortality rates and bank accounts.

this dive into absenteeism is both fascinating in it's exploration of the roots of staying at home, the challenges of motivating households to send kids to school and a look into the new approach a private companies take to solve the problem.

while it would be nice for problems like this to be solved by a publicly owned approach, the outside the box take on the problem feels like innovation that is hard to find in a constrained public institution.

and yet, the private approach has problems of its own: sustainability.

Absenteeism has nearly doubled since the pandemic. With state and federal governments largely abdicating any role in getting kids back into classrooms, some schools have turned to private companies for a reimagined version of the truant officer.