Everywhere had similar "just dropped off" stats. I'm sure some places were worse than others, but alarming rates of students who basically didn't attend school

Everywhere had similar "just dropped off" stats. I'm sure some places were worse than others, but alarming rates of students who basically didn't attend school were the norm. [EDIT] FWIW, in-person schools saw worse results last year, too. Online may have had really bad attendance problems, but in-person still had significant issues (all the usual parents-keeping-kids-out-for-dubious-reasons, plus COVID-related quarantines, crappy alternating-day schedules, et c.) such that despite the problems with online school, the district into which I had the best insight had worse overall outcomes for in-person. The district tried to spin that, for political reasons, but that's how the numbers worked out, for that particular district.