In Ontario, where Tara lives, schools were closed for 135 days during the pandemic. Both there and in the United States, there was very little critical media coverage on this unprecedented public policy. But our guest on today’s program was reporting on those left behind by school closures from the very beginning. Now, he’s covering an element of the aftermath that’s not getting much attention — the crisis in absenteeism.

Alec MacGillis is an author and an award-winning investigative journalist. He’s a reporter at ProPublica, and his latest piece, published both there and at The New Yorker, is “Has School Become Optional?”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com