Correction: An earlier draft used stale chronic-absence rates and counts, made unsupported district and causal claims, and described a comparison to the statewide average as a direct comparison with wealthier students. This version uses checksum-bound New York State Education Department data and limits the comparison to economically disadvantaged students versus all students.

New York reported that 25.6% of economically disadvantaged students were chronically absent in 2018-19. The all-student rate was 18.6%, making the difference 7.0 percentage points.

In 2023-24, the economically disadvantaged rate was 36.3% and the all-student rate was 27.3%. The difference was 9.0 points—2.0 points wider than in 2018-19, a 28.6% increase in the size of the gap.

The gap peaked in 2021-22

The state package contains five comparable reports: 2018-19 and 2020-21 through 2023-24. New York did not publish a 2019-20 chronic-absence release.

The gap was 9.4 points in 2020-21, reached 10.5 points in 2021-22, narrowed to 8.9 points in 2022-23, and then measured 9.0 points in 2023-24. At the 2021-22 peak, the economically disadvantaged rate was 43.1% and the all-student rate was 32.6%.

Nearly half a million economically disadvantaged students were chronically absent

In 2023-24, New York reported 491,218 chronically absent economically disadvantaged students among 1,353,385 enrolled students. The all-student totals were 625,173 chronically absent students among 2,286,110 enrolled students.

Economically disadvantaged students represented 59.2% of published statewide enrollment but 78.6% of the published chronically absent count. Both shares use the separately published all-student total as the denominator; neither is reconstructed from surviving demographic categories.

The 9.0-point figure is a comparison with the all-student average, which includes economically disadvantaged students. It is not the rate difference between economically disadvantaged and non-economically-disadvantaged students, because the source does not publish a complementary statewide subgroup in this extract.

Direct evidence: the published rates, counts, and denominators show that the economically disadvantaged-to-all-student gap was wider in 2023-24 than in 2018-19. Unresourced: the files do not establish why the gap changed or which policies caused the movement.

Data source: New York State Education Department School Report Card chronic-absence tables shipped as checksum-bound public artifacts.

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