The article mentions the chronic absenteeism which is mind blowing: https://apnews.com/article/school-attendance-sick-day-chroni...

I don't see how somebody can learn when they're missing school so much. Math and reading require so much repetition and if you're not in school, you're not getting that time to sit down and do the exercises required to ingrain these topics. It doesn't even matter how a school teaches if the student isn't in class. They're just not going to retain things well.

I think you’re overestimating how much actual education takes place each day. Most kids can catch up fine on double the workload after some extended break even without in class lectures. Just abstractly the extreme example is someone skipping a full grade, but consider the huge middle ground between that and needing to be in class essentially every single day.

That said a significant fraction of kids really do need all the help they can get, but catering to them means leaving a lot of slack in the schedule.

Chronic absenteeism is a huge misnomer. The statistic covers both excused and unexcused absences.

The reason it’s since covid up is because (more) parents stopped sending their kids to school when they are sick.

Last year I got a semi-threatening letter from the district for “chronic absenteeism” because I didn’t want to send a sick child to school. To their defense, they did say that the state (California) requires them to send the letter.