Absentee rates spike at N.C. schools

How many children are being left behind by remote learning?

The effectiveness of remote learning is still up for debate, but one thing we can all agree on: A student has to actually participate to get any benefit. 

For a startlingly large number of North Carolina students, this simply isn’t happening. New data presented by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction shows that thousands of children are falling through the cracks opened wide by mandatory virtual schooling. 

Only 81% of North Carolina students are regularly attending virtually learning, DPI reports. That means that one in every five children is getting essentially zero education this year. In normal times, the regularly attending rate would be well above 90%.

While the absentee rate of virtual school looks bad as it is, the reality is even worse. The 81% figure is just the average, and there’s a huge range of attendance figures across the state. 

On the low end, as few as 63% of students in certain districts are regularly attending virtual learning. 

That’s a staggering average absente…